East Valley town looks to enhance safeguards on use of license plate readers

As municipalities across the Valley and state grapple with the use of automated license plate readers Queen Creek is taking a proactive stance.

The town announced on Wednesday that the Queen Creek Town Council will be looking at ways to enhance automated license plate reader safeguards already in place to oversee access, conduct audits and ensure data-sharing is limited to Arizona law-enforcement agencies.

“It’s not complaint driven. It’s not based off of misuse. We’re just doing a proactive approach,” Queen Creek Mayor Julia Wheatley said. “We want to make sure that our residents recognize that we are making sure we are balancing that technology with accountability and even going as far as making it a crime to misuse this technology.”

At its Sept. 2 meeting, the council will consider:

• Potential policy changes to further restrict access and data sharing
• Potential ordinance changes to enhance accountability, making it a misdemeanor to misuse ALPR technology
• Available technology and potential contract changes

Earlier this month, the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office announced it would be terminating its contract with Flock Safety for its automated license plate reader cameras citing Fourth Amendment concerns.

Chandler also is ending its contract with Flock Safety amid what Chandler Police Chief Bryan Chapman said was suspected misuse or unauthorized use of the system “within our department.”

Currently, the Queen Creek Police Department has a contract with Flock Safety and is beta testing Axon products.

Queen Creek Police Chief Randy Brice said the upcoming discussions and possible action would be useful in explaining to the public how the technology works and how it is used by the department.

“I want to be clear though with this technology; it only identifies vehicle information, and what I mean specifically is the license plate that’s displayed on the vehicle and the characteristics of the vehicle that are visible from the rear of the car,” Brice said. “It doesn’t identify drivers, people, it’s not continuous tracking, it’s not mass surveillance.”

He added that the department does not share information with federal agencies such as the FBI or ICE.

“We want to make sure we have the proper policies, workflows, audit trails, all the different things that actually make this a bulletproof system so that it’s not being misused,” Brice said. “It’s more about the way that it’s applied. That’s important. Technology can always be misused if not done right.”

In the 2025-26 fiscal year, the automated license plate readers provided leads in more than 2,400 cases.

“We have had cases, very specifically with our human trafficking, sexual assaults, other types of very serious crimes, where this has led to the resolution or finding people or at least given us leads in order to go down the road where we can rule out certain things or find that next piece of the puzzle to actually find people,” Brice said.

Wheatley and Brice emphasized that the automated license plate readers are just one tool in QCPD’s crime-fighting toolbox.

“It’s a tremendous tool and we want to make sure that those that keep us safe have the tools that they need to help them solve these crimes. But again, we need to make sure that we’re doing it responsibly,” Wheatley said.

Janet Perez can be reached at jperez@iniusa.org. Please send your comments about this article to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.