Deal limits police retention of license plate data

House and Senate negotiators reached a deal Saturday on how long police departments can store data collected by electronic license plate readers.

Unlike an earlier Senate version of the bill, the agreement does not address video captured by police body cameras.

Rep. Tony Cornish, R-Vernon Center, said the new version allows police to store license plate data for 60 days. He also said there are several privacy measures in place to ensure the data collected from license plate readers is not hacked or shared.

“There’s a lot of things that will keep people from using it randomly or keeping anybody’s name in the database and violating the procedure," Cornish said.

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Some had argued that police should not store the license plate information for any amount of time because most of it is collected from people who are not suspected of a crime.

House Republicans said they were willing to scrap the license plate provisions if the Senate insisted on the body camera language.

Police said they wanted to place greater restrictions on access to the video to protect crime victims and others who are in vulnerable positions.

Others had argued the videos need to be available to the public to safeguard against abuses by police officers.