Seek public input on plate scanners

It makes sense that Cedar Rapids Police Chief Wayne Jerman would want a pair of automated license plate scanners for use by his department. It is impressive technology that allows a squad car traveling through the city to scan license plates and flag certain vehicles, including those that have been stolen, have racked up a slew of parking fines or are owned by people with outstanding criminal warrants.

Jerman has been seeking scanners since he joined the department. On Tuesday, the City Council approved their purchase without comment. It will now be up to the chief, with the help of the city attorney and perhaps the council's public safety committee, to develop policy to govern the scanners' use.

We'd like to see a broader public discussion about how the cameras will be used and how the massive amounts of data they collect will be handled. Des Moines, which uses the scanners, reports that in 2014, it scanned 499,789 vehicles and received 3,063 hits on vehicles with the law enforcement issues mentioned above.

That means more than 99 percent of the data collected amounts to information on the whereabouts of vehicles owned by law-abiding people. We think in Cedar Rapids, those residents should have more say in how data is collected, how long police hold it and who has access to it.

Jerman has said only law enforcement personnel would have access to scanner data. That's a welcome restriction that should be included in the formal policy. But he has not yet determined how long his department will store license plate data. The ACLU recommends deleting data after seven days, unless it's part of an ongoing investigation. A Minnesota law taking affect today allows departments to keep data for 60 days, among other restrictions.

We also think collecting public input on scanner policy could head off the sort of confusion we've seen with the city's policies on automated traffic enforcement cameras. After the City Council approved use of the cameras, there was little public participation in the policies that guided their placement and use. City leaders have been forced to repeatedly explain and defend camera policies ever since.

In the end, the police will decide how to use law enforcement tools. But taking that process out of backrooms and into the community is not only smart policymaking, it's the way open government is supposed to work.

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