Questions need to be asked about police licence-plate readers in Charlottetown, says lawyer

A privacy lawyer in Halifax is telling Charlottetown residents they should be asking questions about how police use their personal information obtained from licence-plate readers.

Earlier this week a Charlottetown man expressed concerns over privacy after he was hand-delivered a ticket for not having renewed his vehicle registration. The ticket came because a photo was taken by a license-plate reader.

David Fraser, a privacy lawyer at McInnes Cooper in Halifax, said people need to ask questions whenever police deploy a new technology that collects information, especially by automated means. 

"It's always worthwhile to have a conversation about what sort of controls are around that," he said.

The readers automatically scan plates and compare them to information in a database to determine if there are any violations connected to the vehicle. Charlottetown police said all scanned plates are stored on a server for two weeks and any found in violation are stored for three months.

The police tend not to be all that transparent about everything they do.— David Fraser, privacy lawyer

"In other jurisdictions using licence-plate recognition technology has kind of come under attack from privacy regulators, for example for retaining the information for longer than is necessary," Fraser said.

He said other jurisdictions have used the information for secondary purposes like tracking individuals.

Tech used by private companies

Charlottetown police have been using automatic licence-plate readers on two of their vehicles for the last year.

Any camera system that is networked and any information stored in a database can determine a car's movements, Fraser said. Because of that, if the database is maintained it could be used to find out where people live and work, he said.

"The police tend not to be all that transparent about everything they do, and they'll say it is for law enforcement purposes and try to end the conversation there," Fraser said.

He said similar technology has been used by private companies to do things like repossess cars and sometimes that information is sold to third parties.

Privacy impact assessment

Earlier this week, Charlottetown Coun. Bob Doiron, who also chairs the protective services committee, said he doesn't think Charlottetown police using automatic licence-plate readers is a privacy issue, but is open to having a discussion about the devices.

"One thing that I think is quite important, and I don't think the police in Canada do enough, would be to do something called a privacy impact assessment," Fraser said.

He said the assessment looks at whether the technology is legitimate, if public risk is proportionate to police benefits and looks into steps to cut down on privacy risk.

CBC received an email from the office of P.E.I.'s privacy commissioner that said the commissioner's office has the jurisdiction to review municipal police in Charlottetown and Summerside and anyone can file a complaint about those forces with the office.

The email said the office of the privacy commissioner believes there is adequate oversight over police use of this private information.

The email also said that under P.E.I. law, a public body can use personal information for the purpose that it was collected, but only to the extent necessary to enable the public body to carry out its purpose in a reasonable manner.

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