The Newtown Township Board of Supervisors approved a plan Wednesday evening to install new fixed license plate readers at several key intersections in both Newtown and Wrightstown Townships.
The board agreed to enter a five-year, $151,000 contract with Plate Logiq, a company that sells license plate recognition technology, to set up and maintain the systems.
A grant will cover the entire cost for the next five years, officials said.
The surveillance technology will be positioned at the intersections of Newtown Bypass with Durham Road and Richboro Road, Sycamore Street with Swamp Road in Newtown Township, and the crossroads of Durham Road and Second Street Pike in Wrightstown Township. Those intersections are under the jurisdiction of the Newtown Township Police Department, which patrols both townships.
Credit: Google Maps
Police Chief John Hearn said the data captured would be shared with other regional law enforcement agencies.
The system is designed to capture and analyze license plates in real-time, cross-referencing them with databases maintained by PennDOT and the FBI’s National Crime Information Center.
The new capability is expected to significantly aid in criminal investigations and missing persons cases.
However, the implementation of this technology has raised privacy concerns.
Supervisor John Mack voiced worries about how the data would be handled.
In response, Hearn assured him that the plate information would remain private and that the department would implement strict policies governing the system’s use. He added that data would be retained for 30 days unless associated with a flagged plate or an ongoing criminal investigation.
The move follows the approval of a similar license plate reader system in Middletown Township.
Middletown Township Police Chief Joseph Bartorilla said there is already a fixed license plate reader system at the intersection of Langhorne-Newtown Road and the Newtown Bypass.
