The U. Illinois Police Department is testing a new automatic license plate scanning technology this week, making the department one of the first in the area to try the system.
Police Sgt. Steve Trame said the system, which consists of a video camera mounted on a squad car, records license plate numbers as the car drives through traffic lanes and parking lots. The recorded plate is stored in the car’s computer system and cross-checked in the system’s national database of license plates belonging to registered sex offenders, gang members and criminal offenders.
If the system matches the recorded license plate to a plate in the database, the computer alerts the officer driving the car, giving them an opportunity to pursue the offender if necessary. The scanner can read plates of cars moving at all speeds within the campus district, and has a range of about one or two lanes of traffic.
“This is brand new for us,” Trame said. “I don’t know of anyone else in the area using them.”
University Police Jeff Christensen said the system is part of an evaluation process to see if the scanners would be cost- and time-efficient tools to add to their investigative methods.
The license plate scanning system is also linked to a Global Positioning System, which records the time the plate was scanned as well as its estimated location. That information is downloaded and stored onto a server at the police station.
“This system is especially helpful with investigations into the recent assault cases on campus,” he said. “If we develop a suspect involved in the assaults, and if the suspect has a vehicle, police can go into the license plate database and check it for the presence of that person on campus at some point in time in the past. It gives us one more piece of the puzzle.”
Trame said that the scanner does not look up any personal information of each car owner; describing it as a “passive system” that continuously scans and records license plate numbers and only notifies the officer of a “hit” if a scan matches something on the database.
Trame said police are hoping to purchase one or two scanners, which cost $18,000 each on average.
Christensen said he hopes a scanner will be purchased within a month or two, but it depends on whether they will be funded through grants, which would still need to be approved.
Stephanie Izral, freshman in DGS, said she thought the new police scanner wouldn’t do anything concrete to prevent crime.
“Even if it can determine if a criminal or sex offender is driving the car, it doesn’t actually implement any safety procedures,” she said.