Brewer police dropped its automatic license plate-reading camera vendor after it was storing data in violation of state law.
Police have operated the license plate readers since 2019 along Route 1A, just east of the interchange with Interstate 395, as part of a pilot program. In 2020, the department installed a mobile automatic license plate reader on a police cruiser, which was bought with grant funding.
On Aug. 31, the police department found out it was retaining the data longer than the 21-day limit set by Maine law, according to a Wednesday statement from Public Safety Director Christopher Martin. The system was installed after the state law was passed.
The vendor, Leonardo, was storing the data longer than allowed because of a “software issue,” Martin said.
The statement comes just over a week after the Bangor Daily News first reported that Brewer had quietly operated the license plate camera for seven years without any public outcry. The Aug. 28 article raised the question about if data was properly retained.
The controversial cameras can record and log the license plates of passing vehicles and alert police departments if they detect one connected to an active investigation. Regardless of brand, the devices are commonly referred to as Flock cameras, one of a handful of companies that make such products.
Brewer no longer has an automatic license plate-reader program, Martin said. He added the city has no plans to spend additional funds on the cameras.
Overall, removing the automatic license plate readers will not affect Brewer’s policing very much, Martin told the BDN on Wednesday. The agency used the cameras occasionally but most of the uses came from other departments like the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency, he said.
Leonardo is not violating federal laws, but the storage violated Maine’s law, Martin said. Brewer police do not have the power to scrub the data because it exists on an outside server.
Another police department in Maine first reported the retention issue to Leonardo in July.
“My heartburn is, I never got a call from them,” Martin said. “You would think that the other users would get a heads up because I would have taken the system offline until it was fixed.”
If Leonardo had told Brewer about the issue and worked with them to fix it, Martin said he would be defending the use of the cameras. But that partnership has soured.
Martin told the BDN previously that Brewer police does not retain the cameras’ data beyond what is necessary for the system to function and it does not have a local database of license plate reads.
License plate reads were supposed to be automatically deleted unless they were flagged for retention, Martin said Tuesday. However, the system was retaining the data beyond the 21-day limit, but Martin did not say how long data was retained.
The system was disabled within 24 hours and the mobile camera was removed on Sept. 2, Martin said. The cameras on 1A have been powered down and notice has been sent to Leonardo, he said.
“The company had not previously notified the City of the software issue or the extended data retention,” Martin said.
Correction: A previous headline on this story incorrectly stated who violated state data retention laws. It was the vendor, Leonardo.