Privacy advocates want Utah police to get a warrant before searching license plate reader data and to delete that data far faster than the nine months state law allows.

The proposals, presented to the Utah Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Interim Committee on Wednesday, Oct. 21, would affect every agency that uses automated license plate readers, or ALPRs. That includes the Unified Police Department, which polices Millcreek. The committee did not vote on any legislation, The Salt Lake Tribune first reported.

Libertas Institute representative Emily Grimmius pitched a seven-bill package that would require warrants to query ALPR data, mandate deletion within 24 hours, notify people whose data was accessed and allow residents to sue agencies for misuse. The package also addressed biometric surveillance such as facial recognition and would require new ALPR systems to be registered and approved.

Mitchell Smith of the Institute for Justice proposed a separate bill requiring warrants, a seven-day deletion window and measures to block out-of-state agencies from querying Utah data. Smith told the committee that 96% of Weber County's camera data searches had come from outside the state.

Pushback on deletion timelines

Sen. Cal Musselman, a West Haven Republican, said seven days was too short.

"The average is 21 to 30 [days], right? So that seems like a more reasonable place to land," Musselman said. "Seven days is not a compromise."

Still, Musselman said lawmakers were "pretty receptive" to adding guardrails beyond current law. Utah's Automatic License Plate Reader System Act caps data storage at nine months. New Hampshire, by contrast, requires unflagged plate data to be purged within three minutes of capture.

What it means for Millcreek

UPD, headquartered at 1330 East Chambers Ave. in Millcreek, serves the city along with Holladay, Midvale, Kearns, Magna and several other communities. Whether UPD currently operates ALPR cameras in Millcreek is not clear from public records.

UPD previously partnered with Flock Safety, the dominant ALPR vendor, but that contract was terminated, according to ABC4 reporting from August. That same month, Millcreek Mayor Cheri Jackson said the city removed an unclaimed Flock camera found on city property near 3220 South Highland Drive. Jackson said UPD and city departments did not know who installed it. When the camera was taken down, it was not operating and was not collecting data, she said.

Under the Libertas Institute's package, new ALPR systems would need to be registered and approved before deployment. That provision could prevent a repeat of the Millcreek situation, where no agency claimed ownership of the camera.

Statewide, the tracking site DeFlock counted 1,059 ALPR cameras in Utah as of Oct. 21, ranking the state 29th per capita nationally, the Tribune reported. The privacy advocates cited 290 documented cases of ALPR data abuse nationwide, tracked by the Institute for Justice, as part of their case for tighter rules.

The committee has not scheduled a vote. Any legislation would need to be formally introduced in a future session of the Utah Legislature.