Automatic license plate readers, like those made by Flock Safety, have received attention and criticism recently.
But law enforcement agencies are regularly adopting other kinds of technology that they say make them better at stopping crimes or catching suspects.
In February, the Broome County Sheriff’s Office announced they were starting to use a GPS tracking system made by the company StarChase. The technology tags and tracks vehicles.
“They could activate a tag that launches out to the car, attaches to the car via a magnet and then from that point forward they could back off and not have a high-speed pursuit,” said Adam Wandt, an associate professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Wandt is an attorney with expert knowledge of technology used by law enforcement agencies. He said for GPS trackers to work, law enforcement officers have to be following close behind a specific vehicle.
Wandt said there are about 100 law enforcement agencies around the country using the StarChase system, according to public announcements. He said the system could save many lives by reducing or eliminating high-speed chases.
“It means that they [law enforcement officers] could have so much distance between them and the suspect, the suspect wouldn’t know they would still be following. Hopefully they would slow down, and then they could be apprehended in the next 20, 30 minutes or whatever it’s gonna be,” he said.
Wandt said these GPS tracker systems should not raise the kinds of civil liberty objections that Flock cameras or other license plate readers do.
“It is not used on the general public. There’s no building of databases as to who’s driving where,” Wandt said“There’s no use of the technology until it’s needed and then at that point this technology is attached directly to a suspect's car only gaining information about that car.”
The Broome County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to WSKG’s request for more information about the StarChase system, such as its cost and how frequently it might be needed.