Good afternoon, councilmembers. My name is Branden Sigua, and I am a senior policy advocate for the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties.
Everyone in this country has the right to move freely without being surveilled, to associate where and with whom they choose and to be protected against unreasonable searches.
And yet, the City of San Diego continues to embrace a technology that puts those rights in jeopardy.
Automated License Plate Readers, or ALPRs, have been used to criminalize people seeking health care, stalk former romantic partners of law enforcement officers and aid this federal administration’s brutal mass deportation agenda.
In San Diego specifically, ALPR data has been shared with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. An ALPR hit caused the wrongful arrest of a man, resulting in him being jailed for a month. ALPR also led San Diego police officers to respond to Fashion Valley when there was a mass shooting occurring more than five miles north at the Islamic Center of San Diego. And this is just what’s been discovered so far.
Today, I bring your attention to the more than 1900 residents, visitors and neighbors of the City of San Diego who signed a petition demanding that the city cancel all of its ALPR contracts. Join the 95 cities that have rejected ALPR systems.
