WASHINGTON – After a string of deaths at the hands of police officers across the country, and recent concerns about privacy and police surveillance, a new Virginia panel will examine whether state laws and policies regarding body cameras, license plate readers and other technologies need to change.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe announced the new sub-panel Tuesday, even as he has yet to decide whether to sign or veto two police surveillance bills sent to him by the General Assembly last week that would limit how much data police can collect and store.
One of the bills would limit all police surveillance technologies by requiring that any data collected be deleted within seven days if it is not part of an ongoing investigation. The other bill would only limit license plate readers, which can automatically track cars across the state.
Some Virginia police departments, including in the D.C. area, have been keeping such data for months or years.
Police agencies argue that investigations may not begin until after the seven-day window, and that holding onto data longer can help them solve crimes or track missing people.
The governor’s office says the new sub-panel was planned before the General Assembly rejected many of the governor’s amendments to the privacy bills, including one that would have extended the amount of time police could hold data to 60 days.
Fairfax Sen. Chap Petersen sponsored one of the bills. He believes the current use of license plate readers is illegal.
“If he vetoes it, he vetoes it, but I’d rather he veto it, than make the law worse than it is,” Petersen said in an interview outside the Capitol last week after the bills were considered during the veto session.
The state’s new sub-panel is part of the Secure Commonwealth Panel. It is set to examine the “constitutional, personal privacy, economic and public safety issues related to the use of new and increasingly sophisticated technologies, weighing their benefits as well as their challenges.” The panel is expected to begin with police body cameras.
Members of the sub-panel include cabinet secretaries, and representatives from police agencies, local governments and minority advocacy groups.
A separate bill that McAuliffe must decide whether to sign would govern drone use by the commonwealth, local police and government agencies once a moratorium expires this summer.
McAuliffe offered amendments that would add exceptions to the bill, but, if it is signed into law, it would require a warrant in nearly all law enforcement situations, except for emergency searches for missing people.
