Many Tam students and Mill Valley families may have already seen or heard about the latest addition to the Mill Valley Police department vehicle fleet: the new Dodge Charger equipped with Automated License Plate Scanner, or ALPS, technology.
The four-camera system scans every license plate in the vicinity of the police car and automatically runs the plate through a statewide database to find out if the car has been stolen or if its license plate had been recognized at the scene of a crime. While a number of Tam students are glad to hear that public safety departments are taking advantage of new technology, others question its usefulness and are concerned that the cameras violate their right to privacy.
“The job [of the police] is to help protect people, and with the use of these advanced police cars they have the advantage of tracking down cars that have been stolen,” senior Kristin Cerda-Womack said.
For many students, the new Dodge Charger is the basis for a debate regarding privacy. Some find the technology unsettling and feel that the cameras invade their privacy. “It’s kind of creepy knowing someone may be watching where you go,” Cerda-Womack said.
On the other hand, other students do not believe that the cameras violate their privacy. Senior Alba Minniti said, “These cars are not given to the general publicwhere just anyone can scan other license plates, but they are given to law enforcement officials who are there to protect us.”
Freshman Michael Zan Vandt said, “I’m out in public anyway. Anyone could take a picture, so I don’t think it’s an issue of privacy.”
Detective Ryan Smith of the Mill Valley Police Department affirmed that the cameras are solely an investigative tool and assures students and families that they don’t have anything to worry about.
According to Smith, the cameras do not check registration nor can they say who owns the car. They only scan the license plate and keep a record of where the vehicle was spotted. Police officers are always on the lookout for stolen vehicles, and the ALPS technology scans and recognizes license plates more efficiently than a person can.
Aside from issues of privacy, some Tam students question the value of ALPS technology in a city like Mill Valley, which, when compared to other cities in California, has a very low crime rate. “Do we need a robo-cop skirting around with high tech bad guy finders?” senior Peter Sanders asked.Detective Smith said, “Technology pervades everything we do now [in public safety].” Additionally, other cities in California use the same ALPS technology. According to Smith, the ALPS plate scanner technology has already recovered one stolen vehicle in Mill Valley.