2020 Vigilant Data Sharing Information - Automated License Plate Reader (Cecil County Sheriff's Office)

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Maryland Public Information Act, I hereby request the following records:

Part A: Information related to Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) data sharing.

1) The names of agencies and organizations with which the Agency shares ALPR data;
2) The names of agencies and organizations from which the Agency receives ALPR data;
3) The names of agencies and organizations with which the Agency shares “hot list” information;
4) The names of agencies and organizations from which the Agency receives “hot list” information;

Part B: Information Related to Numbers of “Detections” (plate scans) and “Hits” (plate scans that matched to a hotlist)
5) The aggregate number of detections collected during 2018;
6) The aggregate number of “hits” during 2018;
7) The aggregate number of detections collected during 2019;
8) The aggregate number of “hits” during 2019.

Approximately two years ago your agency provided some or all of the equivalent information in response to a records request. You can view your agency’s previous release here:
https://www.eff.org/pages/explore-alpr

For items 1-4: This information is easily available within the Agency’s Vigilant Solutions LEARN system. The simplest way to extract this data is to generate an “Agency Data Sharing Report” PDF file from within LEARN. To do this, a user may simply go to the “Sharing” section of LEARN and select “Output Report.” A CSV/XLS file containing these records would also satisfy this request.

The instructions for extracting this data is described on pages 62-63 of the LEARN Agency Manager Guide, which may be found at this link:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3860685-LEARN-5-1-Agency-Manager-Guide.html

For items 5-8: This information is easily available within the Agency’s Vigilant Solutions LEARN system. The simplest way to extract this data is to generate a “Dashboard Hit Ratio Report” PDF file from within LEARN. We would prefer the data for each year to be provided separately.

The instructions for extracting this data is described on pages 78-79 of the LEARN Agency Manager Guide, which may be found at this link: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3860685-LEARN-5-1-Agency-Manager-Guide.html

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 10 calendar days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Dave Maass

Chief Deputy Widdoes,

Thank you for the response. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to respond. Covid-19 has slowed things down, and I imagine it's causing complications on your end.

Before I go through the appeal process, I wanted to ask you about Maryland Code, Public Safety § 3-509.
https://codes.findlaw.com/md/public-safety/md-code-public-safety-sect-3-509.html

This law requires that your agency disclose, "...the number of automatic license plate reader readings made by a law enforcement agency that maintains an automatic license plate reader database..." as well as other pieces of information. These state-mandated disclosures would be sufficient and I would be willing to close out my request.

Otherwise, we can escalate. But I think this would be the most elegant solution and is, in fact, the appropriate one under statute.

Thank you,

Dave