Ask your own police department

Subject: Public Records Request – License plate reader (ALPR) records (Wis. Stat. §§ 19.31–19.39) To: Records Custodian, [name of the police department] Dear Records Custodian, Pursuant to the Wisconsin Public Records Law, Wis. Stat. §§ 19.31–19.39, I request copies of the following records about automated license plate readers (ALPR) used by or available to the Department. By ALPR I mean any automated license plate recognition system or service, fixed, mobile or in-car, regardless of vendor or network, including but not limited to Flock Safety, Genetec, Axon, Motorola Solutions/Vigilant, Neology, and Packetalk or the Wisconsin ALPR Association's shared system. 1. Agreements and costs. Every agreement for an ALPR system or service from January 1, 2019 to the present, including any contract, order form, accepted quote, license, memorandum of understanding, data-sharing or access agreement (including access to cameras owned by a business or other private party), membership or participation agreement, amendment or renewal, together with the invoices issued under them. 2. Approval. The record of approval of each such agreement by the governing body or one of its committees (resolution, agenda item and minutes, or staff report). If another office holds that record, please forward that part of the request or tell me the meeting date so I can obtain the minutes myself. 3. Written policy. Any written policy, standard operating procedure, general order or directive governing the Department's use of ALPR, including who may search, retention, sharing with other agencies and audits, in effect at any time since January 1, 2019, including earlier versions. 4. Sharing. For any networked ALPR system (such as Flock), the current list of agencies and organizations the Department shares its data with and that share data with it, as the spreadsheet or CSV file the system exports (in Flock, the sharing or "SharedNetworks" export); and any record showing the Department's nationwide, statewide and federal sharing settings and when they were last changed. 5. Audit logs. The audit log of searches performed by Department users (in Flock, the "Organization" audit log) and the audit log of searches of the Department's cameras by other organizations (in Flock, the "Network" audit log), each from the earliest date available in the account to the present, as the .csv or .xlsx files the system exports. Consecutive monthly exports are fine. If entries before a certain date no longer exist, a written statement of that date and the retention period that applies satisfies that part of the item. 6. Mobile units and the Wisconsin ALPR Association. Records sufficient to show any ALPR units on the Department's vehicles and the system they report to; and records of the Department's participation in the Wisconsin ALPR Association since January 1, 2016, including any membership agreement, dues or fee payments, and any contract or license for the Packetalk or other system used through the Association. If no record exists for any numbered item, a brief written statement to that effect fully satisfies that item. Form of the records. I request each record in its original electronic form, as the Department holds it: - Data exported from an ALPR system (items 4 and 5) as the .csv or .xlsx file the system produces. - Spreadsheets as the original .xlsx or .csv file. - Email and other correspondence as the original messages (.msg or .eml) with their attachments. - Documents that exist only as PDFs or scans (for example, a signed agreement) as they are. A PDF or printout of a spreadsheet or data export can't be sorted, counted or compared, which is why I'm asking for the files themselves. Any redactions can be made in the file itself, for example by blanking the affected cells, with the basis noted. Please deliver the files by email where possible. Under Wis. Stat. § 19.35(3), fees are limited to the actual, necessary and direct cost of reproduction and location; since electronic files sent by email involve no printing, I would not expect per-page copy charges to apply to them. If you expect total fees to exceed $50, please send an itemized estimate before proceeding and I will narrow the request if needed. I am glad to receive records in parts as they are ready. If any portion of a responsive record is withheld, please release the remainder and state the specific statutory or common-law basis for each withholding in writing, as Wis. Stat. § 19.35(4) requires. Thank you for your assistance. Sincerely, [Your name] [Your email or mailing address]