Civil liberties groups told police in 71 California communities Thursday they must stop sharing automated license plate information with law enforcement agencies in other states that could use the data to track people seeking or providing abortions.
Providing license plate data to out-of-state police agencies has been barred by law in California since 2016 and has become more hazardous since last June, when the Supreme Court repealed the constitutional right to abortion that it had declared in 1973, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union said in letters to the local governments. Eleven of the police agencies targeted by the groups are in the Bay Area – eight in Contra Costa County, two in Marin County and one, Gilroy, in Santa Clara County.
It was the latest in a series of actions by reproductive-rights supporters and state lawmakers to make California a haven for abortion-seekers in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling last June repealing the constitutional right to abortion that the court had declared in 1973.
State laws enacted since the ruling provide abortion funding for women traveling to California for reproductive care and prohibit enforcement of subpoenas from other states seeking information on abortions in California. Another new law, AB1242 by Assembly Member Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, D-Orinda, prohibits law enforcement agencies in the state from providing information to an agency in another state about a legal abortion in California.
In Thursday’s letters, the advocacy groups said police in other states who use license plate data to locate vehicles in California “may seek to use that information to monitor abortion clinics and closely track the movements of abortion seekers and providers. This threatens even those obtaining or providing abortions in California, since several anti-abortion states plan to criminalize and prosecute those who seek or assist in out-of-state abortions.”
“Sharing (automated license plate reader) data with law enforcement in states that criminalize abortion undermines California’s extensive efforts to protect reproductive health privacy,” said Jennifer Pinsof, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Automated license plate readers are high-speed cameras used by police to record plate numbers and locations and store them in a database. The 2016 law, SB34 by Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, prohibited government agencies from sharing the data with anyone except a state or local government in California.
Supporters of SB34 said the data, collected in tens of millions of license scans by law enforcement agencies, raised privacy concerns and could be used to track drivers to drug clinics, doctors’ offices or sites of political protests. The civil liberties groups relied on the law to sue the Marin County sheriff for relaying license plate data to federal immigration agencies, a suit the county settled last June by agreeing to halt the practice.
In related legislation, SB345 by Sen. Nancy Skinner, now awaiting a floor vote in the state Senate, would make it a crime for a bail bond agent in California to detain someone sought by another state for performing or receiving an abortion, or gender-affirming care for a transgender person, that was legal in California.
And in Congress, Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-San Diego, has re-introduced legislation she calls the My Body, My Data Act, which would prohibit technology companies from sharing personal health information that was gathered from private apps, like those women use to track their menstrual cycles.
“As Republican-led states are in a frenzy to ban or severely restrict access to abortion care … it’s never been more urgent to protect our reproductive and sexual health data,” Jacobs said in a statement Thursday. The bill, supported by abortion-rights groups, is similar to legislation Jacobs sponsored last year that failed to reach the House floor.
Pinsof said the civil liberties groups sent public records requests to hundreds of city and county governments in California and got replies from 71 local governments that said they were sharing license plate data with other states.
In addition to Gilroy, the Bay Area communities are Antioch, Brentwood, Hercules, Novato, Oakley, Pittsburg, San Pablo, San Rafael, San Ramon and Walnut Creek. The list also includes sheriff’s offices in El Dorado, Imperial, Kern, Kings, Orange and Riverside counties.
The same letter was sent to Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office, which could enforce the state law against the local governments. The Chronicle asked Bonta’s office for comment but did not get an immediate response.
Reach Bob Egelko: begelko@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @BobEgelko
