By Kevin Hendricks, The Paper.
Rio Rancho’s automated license plate reader network has grown to 19 cameras citywide, and police say the system — all of it run through vendor Flock Safety — is paying off in stolen vehicle recoveries and arrests.
Police told councilors during an Aug. 18 work session that the most recent tracked data, from 2022 and 2023, shows the cameras helped recover 74 stolen vehicles, recover 50 stolen license plates and led to 85 arrests over the two-year span.
The program began in 2018 with cameras mounted on patrol vehicles before the department shifted to fixed, solar-powered units in 2020, settling on Flock Safety in part because the company doesn’t retain or sell the license plate data it collects. Under the current contract, data is deleted after 30 days unless an officer downloads it as part of an active case.
Police said cameras flag potential matches against the FBI’s National Crime Information Center database, but any hit is treated as an investigative lead — not probable cause on its own — requiring an officer to independently verify the match before taking action.
A new state law, Senate Bill 40, took effect July 1 and restricts how ALPR data can be shared, including barring its use for immigration enforcement. It also makes the data confidential and exempt from public records requests. Police said the department audits the system quarterly and has fired employees in the past for misusing law enforcement databases.