License Plate Readers To Be Used In D.C. Area

Privacy advocates say they are concerned about what is done with the images picked up.

"What's going to happen to the data?" asked MarcRotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which monitors civil liberties issues. "The Department of Homeland Security will now have an enormous amount of information about the travel habits of Washington area residents."

Rotenberg questioned whether the terrorist databases connected to the readers would be any more reliable than the much-criticized watch lists used at airports.

Authorities say many of the details of the new program are being worked out. But Reardon said that at least in the short term, officials don't plan to store data on the scanned license plates, except for those associated with terrorism or other crime.

"We'll have to carefully weigh all those [privacy] issues and make sure we do it the right way," said Andrew Lauland, the top homeland security official in Maryland.

But, he said, license plates are open to view by any passerby. "So there's nothing intrusive about it," he said.

In some ways, the new system might be less invasive, Reardon said. Currently, police can run the plate number of any vehicle, turning up the name of the owner, he said. The new system pulls up information only on cars linked to crime or terrorism, he said.

If a vehicle has no such associations, "you're not even in the database," he said.

Lauland said the system could be useful in such incidents as the hijacking of a fuel tanker in Baltimore last fall that raised fears of potential terrorism. The vehicle was found in the District, and a terror connection was ruled out.

In England, one of the suspects in last year's botched car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow was arrested after his license plate was picked up by roadside cameras.

Reardon said, however, that there might be a time delay of up to several hours in getting information on wanted cars into the license plate devices being installed in police vehicles. He said the devices would be useful for more than just potentially stopping terrorists. "It will help us identify other types of criminal activity" by detecting cars used in offenses such as bank robberies, he said.

The tag readers are one of about two dozen projects in the Washington region that will be funded with the homeland security grant, an annual award to urban areas at risk of terrorist attack.

Officials announced that they will also spend $4 million to equip police in the area with radiation detectors; $5.6 million for training and gear for local bomb squads; and about $18 million for equipment, planning and exercises to help the region's hospitals and medical personnel cope with disasters.

Robert Malson, president of the D.C. Hospital Association, said he was grateful that state and local officials had devoted so much of the grant to the medical sector.

"Normally they focus most of the money on government agencies, but the hospitals are a critical part of the response to any natural disaster or terrorist attack," he said.

The $59.8 million urban area grant to the region was smaller than the $61.6 million it received last year from the Department of Homeland Security. However, the D.C. area also received a new homeland-security grant this year, of $11.5 million, to help it prepare for such catastrophes as the detonation of a nuclear bomb.

Staff researcher Eddy Palanzo contributed to this report.