EAST HARTFORD – New policy created by the East Hartford Town Council will regulate how the town’s police department can use technology including license plate readers, surveillance cameras, drones and traffic enforcement cameras.
Don Bell, the vice chair of the Town Council, said the year’s worth of work that led to the creation of the policy was key in managing “how technology creeps further into our lives.” The ordinance went into effect on Sept. 24.
“I believe this is one of the most important things that we’ll do as a Council and it’s only the first step,” Bell said at the Sept. 2 meeting where the Town Council unanimously approved the ordinance.
Part of the ordinance governs how police can use existing technology in town, like the 15 surveillance cameras already installed across town on public roads and sidewalks. Other sections of the ordinance mandate how data is collected and used on potential future technologies, like license plate readers and both speed and red light enforcement cameras.
Those types of cameras, Bell said, can’t be automatically installed because of this ordinance. Each proposed installation would need Town Council review.
“Approval tonight does not mean that new cameras and devices are going up immediately,” Bell said. “This ordinance is merely the foundation for protecting our data, limiting the power of government and making our roads safer if the Council approves technologies after future review.”
The ordinance states all data collected must be deleted within 30 days unless it’s part of an ongoing police investigation. The ordinance also notes that facial recognition is not a feature of the technology.
To Bell, that was important, as he worried about how the cameras could adversely impact community members.
“Even after all of these important revisions I still feel a level of discomfort,” Bell said. “We know that surveillance technology, good intentions or not, often disproportionately impacts communities of color. As one of the most diverse communities in this state, throughout this process I’ve worried if I would unintentionally hurt East Hartford by supporting any ordinance which opened the door for more technology, so I worked harder to prevent that from happening.”
Speed cameras could eventually be installed in East Hartford. The town adopted an ordinance that governs how the police department can use certain technologies, like enforcement cameras, security cameras, drones and license plate readers. (Courtesy of CT Department of Transportation)
The police department will also be mandated to create annual reports about the technology. Richard Kehoe, the chair of the Town Council, said that was an important inclusion.
“We also created an annual report that has to come to the Town Council and is put on our town website,” Kehoe said. “That report, which comes from the police chief, provides a whole host of information regarding how that technology was used and analysis of how it benefited or furthered the goals of public safety. It creates a living process that will allow the town, the Town Council and the police department to navigate the ever changing roles of technology.”
The ordinance also lays out how potential future speed and red light enforcement cameras would work. Under the policy, those cameras would fine drivers who go through a red light and speed 15 mph over the speed limit $25 on the first violation and $35 on repeat violations.
Noise cameras, similarly, would fine violators creating noise above 85 decibels, with a warning on the first violation, $100 on a second violation and $250 for repeated violations. All of those violations are able to be appealed by the public.
Bell said those policies help balance an overreach of technology with the need to improve the safety of East Hartford’s roads.
“How do we balance technology that may help make our roads safer and improve our quality of life with the need to protect our data and ensure that government power is limited?” Bell asked. “It can’t just do whatever it wants whenever it wants in the name of public safety, but that whatever gets approved is only used for a limited purpose, not dragnet surveillance.”
Drones, which are also regulated in the ordinance, will only be able to be used by police for “emergencies, accidents, crime prevention or safety planning.” Those restrictions, Kehoe said, should prevent the technology from being abused.
“Technology can be good, but it can also be abused,” Kehoe said. “Through this ordinance we tried to make its use very narrow to prevent abuses from happening. As we know, technology changes all the time. It’s awfully hard to legislate regulations of technology because by the time you legislate, technology has developed several iterations in that time period.”
A surveillance camera sits on the top of a building in downtown Waterbury. East Hartford adopted an ordinance that governs how the police department can use certain technologies, like enforcement cameras, security cameras, drones and license plate readers. (Hearst Connecticut Media)
Mayor Connor Martin applauded the Town Council’s thoughtfulness on the policy, which he thinks will make the town safer.
“Nothing we do is just because, nothing we do is reactionary. It’s with thought, it’s with intent and purpose,” Martin said. “At the end of the day – this is not to make money. It’s to curb behavior and to get people to follow our traffic laws.”
Martin said the town is also considering roundabouts and other traffic calming features on roadways as other tools to help the town’s police department.
“This acknowledges that our police department cannot be at every intersection at once,” Martin said. “If we’re going to create a safe community, a walkable community, we need to deploy other tools that are going to give our police the enforcement strength that they need.”
This article originally published at East Hartford sets policy on police use of technology like license plate readers, speed cameras.
