Marin Sheriff Vows Court Fight Against ACLU-Backed Suit

MARIN COUNTY, CA — The Marin County Sheriff’s Office on Friday issued a statement Friday in response to an American Civil Liberties Union-backed lawsuit.

The ACLU filed the lawsuit on Thursday in Marin County Superior Court that alleges Sheriff Robert Doyle illegally shared millions of local drivers' license plates and location data, captured by a network of cameras his office uses, with hundreds of federal and out-of-state agencies including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in violation of state law.

The Sheriff’s Office in a brief statement said as of Friday afternoon that it was aware of the lawsuit but that it had not been served.

The Sheriff’s Office’s statement said it has followed the California State Auditor’s 2020 recommendations that led to “significant changes to our policies and practices on the (License Plate Reader) program.

“The LPR program does not identify anybody’s ethnicity or immigration status,” the Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

“We will defend our LPR policy in court.”

The practice in the estimation of the ACLU endangers the safety and privacy of local immigrant communities and facilitates location tracking by police.

"The suit seeks to end the sheriff's illegal practice of giving hundreds of agencies outside California access to a database of license plate scans used to identify and track people, revealing where they live and work, when they visit friends or drop their kids at school, and when they attend religious services or protests," the ACLU of Northern California said in a statement announcement the suit.

Longtime Marin community activists Lisa Bennett, Cesar S. Lagleva, and Tara Evans are being represented by attorney Michael T. Risher.

They have the backing of the ACLU Foundations of Northern California, Southern California, and San Diego and Imperial Counties and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

"The information unveiled through this lawsuit shows that the freedoms that people think they possess in Marin County are a mirage: people cannot move about freely without being surveilled," Bennett said in a statement.

"Our county sheriff, who has sworn to uphold the law, is in fact violating it by sharing peoples' private information with outside agencies. This has especially alarming implications for immigrants and people of color: two communities that are traditionally the targets of excessive policing, surveillance, and separation from loved ones and community through incarceration or deportation."

License plate scans occur through Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs): high-speed cameras mounted in a fixed location or atop police cars moving through the community that automatically capture all license plates that come into view, recording the exact location, date, and time that the vehicle passes by, according to the ACLU, which notes that this data can paint a detailed picture of our private lives, our daily schedules, and our social networks.

ACLU Foundation of Northern California Immigrants' Rights Program Director

Vasudha Talla alleges Doyle shared data with ICE and CBP, described in a statement as the federal government's "most rogue agencies."

"In the hands of police, the use of ALPR technology is a threat to privacy and civil liberties, especially for immigrants," Talla said in a statement.

"Federal immigration agencies routinely access and use ALPR information to locate, detain, and deport immigrants. The sheriff's own records show that Sheriff Doyle is sharing ALPR information with two of the most rogue agencies in the federal government: ICE and CBP.

"Police should not be purchasing surveillance technology, let alone facilitating the deportation and incarceration of our immigrant communities."