Sugar Land to install 27 license plate recognition cameras

SUGAR LAND, TX (KTRK) -- The city of Sugar Land is significantly expanding its use of cameras to help catch criminals.

Soon, if you drive through the city, there's a good chance police will have a picture of your license plate on file, whether you've committed a crime or not.

City Council approved $1.6 million to install 27 License Plate Recognition cameras. They'll be mainly on the north side of town, around the busiest entry points to the city. Police say they hope this will keep the bad guys from even trying to mess with Sugar Land.

"The camera will record the rear of the vehicle, the license plate only," says Assistant Police Chief Eric Robins.

Robins says these cameras will enhance their ability to fight and prevent crime. For example, if a witness to a crime gets a vehicle description.

"We can use this information, search our database of all the recorded license plates that we have and we can narrow it down to a time frame, particularly to within an hour of when the incident occurred, take that information and use it for further investigation," he said.

Robins tells us the ones already in use in the Town Square and First Colony Mall areas have helped them track down a woman who robbed another woman in a Target parking lot.

He says the citizens have been asking for this expansion. But Amin Alehashem, with the Texas Civil Rights Project, says be careful what you wish for.

"Absolutely this is an expansion of the Big Brother state," he says.

Alehashem says he's concerned about the justification.

"In some ways you feel safer because now there are more eyes monitoring potentially criminal activity. But really that means government now has access to at least some of your travel records, some of your personal information, where you've been, where you're going," he said.

"It will not be associated with your actual registration. It'll just be a database of recorded license plates. So after 30 days this information will be deleted," Robbins assures.

That 30-day time frame is the result of a City Council resolution.

We're told the database can also be helpful with Amber Alerts, tracking down stolen vehicles and wanted felons.

The cameras and database are scheduled to be installed and ready to go within the next four to six months.