When a car passes an
automated license plate reader
(ALPR), its plate is captured and instantly compared against a list of vehicles that police are actively looking for or that police have identified for real-time surveillance. These are called “hotlists,” and EFF has learned that one used by agencies across the country targets immigrants on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Agencies using Flock Safety ALPR systems commonly allow the plates their cameras collect to be compared against the FBI's National Crime Information Center (NCIC) hotlists. These hotlists are broken into "topics," such as "Gang or Suspected Terrorist," "Stolen Vehicle," and "Missing Person."
Flock Safety told EFF via email: "Local agencies add/remove license plates from the NCIC list. The FBI curates the NCIC list, and pushes it out to local agencies. Once the list leaves the FBI, they do not see any agency alerts. They only see when a local agency adds or removes plates from the list."
But one list is different: The "Immigration Violator" hotlist is populated exclusively by ICE, and it is the only agency authorized to enter or maintain records in this system, according to the
NCIC operator manual
. It includes license plates associated with
administrative warrants
, which are issued by ICE agents without judicial review. The manual further describes the data:
The Immigration Violator File contains records on criminal aliens who have been deported for drug trafficking, firearms trafficking, or serious violent crimes and on foreign-born individuals who have violated some section of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
And:
If the ICE has reasonable grounds to believe that the subject may be operating a particular vehicle or a vehicle bearing a particular license plate, the vehicle and/or license data may be included in the record.
Buried in the Flock Safety administrative interface, there is a drop-down menu where agencies select which NCIC topics to su
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