The City of Waterloo is set to introduce an automatic license plate recognition program to help enforce parking rules.
The license plate recognition system (LPR) uses cameras mounted to the top of an SUV to capture vehicle information and log GPS coordinates of cars parked longer than two hours in city lots or streets.
The SUV, which cost roughly $60,000, could be out on the streets as early as this week and will focus on on-street parking first.
The city says the new system will be safer for officers and will be more efficient, saying they will be able to cover more ground with this technology and therefore can handle more complaints.
The city approved the program Monday evening after a report about privacy protection was presented to council.
“The policy is focusing on protecting personal information and making sure that any information that's not required to be kept by the city is purged immediately,” said Shayne Turner, Director of Municipal Enforcement Services.
Turner says the policy ensures staff has guidelines in place to make sure information is removed from the system when it isn’t needed by the city, and information that is needed is safeguarded and protected electronically.
The city says the LPR system will only be used to capture parking violations and will not be used to collect information for other law enforcement purposes.
