Standardizing Automated Licence Plate Recognition Policy in Canadian Policing

• In Event: Poster Session

Abstract

Automated licence plate recognition (ALPR) is a popular policing tool with little regulation in Canada. We document the historical and contemporary patterns of ALPR use as well as polices governing ALPR through a national survey of all municipal, provincial, national, and First Nations police services across Canada. Themes guiding ALPR use are identified through a content analysis of collected policies. Coding was informed by existing literature, with key themes including ALPR’s promotion of efficiency, workload reduction, potential to reduce officer biases, unstandardized and vague data retention periods, risk of data breaches with digitally stored information, limits or capacity for failure, and public awareness of the technology. By situating service policies against Canadian and international ALPR use guidelines, we produce a comprehensive ALPR policy framework that contributes to the standardization of the technology’s use across Canada by providing a template that services can reference when drafting or refining their own policies. Consistent, standardized practices are an important feature of Canadian policing, and a national ALPR policy framework continues this tradition. This framework will encourage the creation of police technology policies that are nationally consistent and will limit the resources required of individual services when developing their own policies.

Authors

• Amanda Pelletier, Queen's University

• Alana Saulnier, Queen's University