PIERRE, S.D. (South Dakota Searchlight) – South Dakota’s top law enforcement official announced Wednesday that he plans to propose state legislation limiting the use of automatic license plate readers, such as Flock cameras, to “legitimate law enforcement purposes.”
Republican Attorney General Marty Jackley said it’s important to have “reasonable safeguards” statewide, while allowing uses that help solve criminal investigations.
He said the technology was “instrumental” in finding a 9-year-old girl who was abducted in Clark County in 2023 and in the investigation into the disappearance and death of 14-year-old McKenna Wendel, of Sioux Falls, which is the subject of an ongoing prosecution.
“I think this is, because of really what’s happened nationally, something that I think deserves legislative attention and proper legislation that allows law enforcement to use vital tools and has safeguards for private, individual privacy,” Jackley said.
National groups including the American Civil Liberties Union have raised concerns about how the data collected by Flock cameras is used. In other states, police officers have been accused of abuses such as using the technology to track romantic partners or exes.
Jackley said he believes there’s bipartisan support for using the technology to solve serious crimes.
“But if you’re doing that, you need to safeguard our privacy, we take that very seriously in South Dakota,” he said, adding “let’s put in the safeguards, put it in the law so that everybody knows what those safeguards are.”
Sioux Falls and Madison are among the South Dakota cities already using the technology. Earlier this year, law enforcement in those cities said the technology helps find criminal suspects. The cameras capture images of license plates on passing vehicles, which can be checked against databases of reported crimes.
Decisions on how the technology is used, how records are kept and where the cameras are placed are all up to local authorities, Jackley said. He said the goal of his legislation would be to ensure data from license plate readers may only be collected, accessed or used for law enforcement investigations into criminal activity, and to require that any information gathered must be protected and deleted within an established period of time unless it is directly relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation.
Jackley said he’s engaging groups like the state’s attorneys association, the sheriff’s association and the police chief’s association, as well as other states’ attorneys general to learn about how other states regulate the cameras.
The attorney general in South Dakota can ask lawmakers to sponsor bills on his behalf. Jackley’s term as attorney general ends in January, the same month that the annual legislative session begins. Jackley is running for the U.S. House rather than for reelection as attorney general.
Jackley told South Dakota Searchlight he plans to involve Lance Russell, the unopposed Republican nominee for attorney general, in conversations about the legislation. Russell did not immediately respond to a message from Searchlight.
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