HB2917 - 572R - Senate Fact Sheet

Purpose

Outlines official law enforcement purposes for which a law enforcement agency (LEA) may use a government mass surveillance network, including an automated license plate reader (surveillance network). Prescribes requirements relating to the use of a surveillance network, including training, data management and authorization by the qualified electors of a local government jurisdiction before deployment.

Background

The Arizona Department of Transportation must provide every vehicle owner with one license plate for each registered vehicle. The license plate must display the number assigned to the vehicle and vehicle owner. A person must maintain each license plate so that it is clearly legible and securely fastened to the vehicle in a manner that: 1) prevents the plate from swinging; 2) is at a height of at least 12 inches from the ground to the bottom of the plate; and 3) is in a position that is clearly visible. Failure to display a license plate as prescribed is a civil traffic violation (A.R.S. §§ 28-121; 28-2351; and 28-2354).

Except as specifically prescribed, the federal Driver's Privacy Protection Act prohibits a state department of motor vehicles and any officer, employee or contractor of the department from knowingly disclosing or otherwise making available to any person or entity an individual's personal information or highly restricted personal information obtained in connection with a motor vehicle record without the express consent of the person for whom the information applies. Personal information may be disclosed for uses including, but not limited to use: 1) by any government agency, including any court or law enforcement agency, in carrying out the agency's functions or any private person or entity acting on behalf of a federal, state or local agency; 2) in connection with matters of motor vehicle or driver safety and theft; and 3) in connection with any civil, criminal, administrative or arbitral proceeding in any federal, state or local court, agency or self-regulatory body, including for service of process, investigation in anticipation of litigation and the execution and enforcement of judgments and orders (18 U.S.C. § 2721).

There is no anticipated fiscal impact to the state General Fund associated with this legislation.

Provisions

Voter Approval

1. Prohibits any local government or state agency in Arizona from operating or establishing a surveillance network without notification and approval by a majority of the voters.

2. Limits a vote to approve or deny deployment of a surveillance network to pertain to only the area that the local government has exclusive control over.

3. Requires any local government or state agency that proposes to deploy, contract for or provide funding for a surveillance network technology to publish a public notice declaring its intent to engage in government mass surveillance of the population at least 60 days before any vote for approval.

4. Requires the public notice to be posted in the local government's or state agency's official website, physically posted at the building which the public hearing will occur and mailed or electronically delivered to each registered voter within the proposed surveillance network coverage area.

5. Requires the surveillance network public notice to include:

a) the type and number of surveillance networks proposed to be deployed;

b) the vendor's name and the terms of service for the surveillance network;

c) the projected annual costs of the surveillance network;

d) how the data will be collected from the surveillance network will be handled, retained and destroyed; and

e) the date, time and location of the public hearings.

6. Requires at least two public hearings to be held, separated by at least 20 calendar days, with the second hearing scheduled at a different time of day than the first hearing.

7. Requires verbal and written public testimony to be received at each hearing regarding the deployment of any surveillance network.

8. Prohibits a limit from being placed on the number of participants who may offer verbal or written public testimony at each hearing.

9. Stipulates that, for a surveillance network proposed by a city, town or county, the governing body may only authorize a ballot measure regarding a surveillance network deployment on 65 percent of the affirmative vote of the full membership of the governing body.

10. Requires the vote of a city, town or county governing body to be recorded by each official's name and made part of the public record.

11. Requires the ballot measure for a county question to deploy a surveillance network to clearly describe, in plain language, the scope, total cost, data handling practices and duration of the deployment of the surveillance network.

12. Requires, if a surveillance network is proposed by the state or a state agency and before deployment of a surveillance network, all of the following to occur:

a) at least two public hearings must be held in each county, with one public hearing held at the most populous city or town within the county and another public hearing held at the second most populous city or town within the county;

b) the public hearings are separated by at least 20 calendar days, with the second hearing scheduled at a different time of day than the first hearing; and

c) upon completion of the public hearings, the Legislature may refer the question of deployment of the surveillance network by the state or a state agency for approval by the voters.

13. Determines that the authority to deploy and administer a surveillance network is vested in the chief of police, county sheriff or Director of the Department of Public Safety (DPS) or the equivalent agency head.

14. Requires the voters to approve a ballot measure for a city or town, county or state agency to deploy a surveillance network at the next general election with at least a 60 percent affirmative vote.

15. Prohibits any public entity that is not explicitly authorized to deploy a surveillance network from authorizing the deployment of a surveillance network for any purpose.

Surveillance Network Regulation

16. Requires a surveillance network authorized by the voters to be installed and configured for the sole purpose of recording and scanning license plates.

17. Prohibits the surveillance network from being capable of photographing, recording, producing or analyzing images of the occupants or contents of any vehicle.

18. Prohibits any surveillance network deployed in Arizona from allowing retroactive searches of any archived license plate data.

19. Requires any license plate data captured by a surveillance network to be compared to the active warrant and alert list within three minutes after the initial capture of the license plate data.

20. Stipulates that, if no match to the active warrant list or alert list is found, then any license plate data captured by the surveillance network must be automatically and irreversibly destroyed in a manner that renders the data unrecoverable.

21. Prohibits license plate data from being transmitted, copied, uploaded or transferred to any external server, cloud system, warehouse or third-party system within four minutes after initial capture of the license plate data, except for the extent necessary to process the comparison between the captured license plate data and the active warrant or alert list.

22. Stipulates that, if the license plate data captured by a surveillance network produces a confirmed match with the active warrant or alert list, then the data on a specific license plate scan may be retained only until the final court disposition of the associated case, after which the license plate data must be destroyed within 30 days.

23. Requires any retained license plate data to be stored by the LEA that collected the license plate data.

24. Prohibits any retained license plate data from being transmitted to a third party, unless authorized by court order.

25. Requires an LEA, before deploying any surveillance network, to register by the surveillance network with DPS on forms approved the Director of DPS.

26. Requires the head of an LEA to certify, in writing, that:

a) the surveillance network to be deployed meets all outlined surveillance network requirements;

b) the LEA has policies that conform with the outlined surveillance network requirements; and

c) each law enforcement officer (LEO) who will operate the surveillance network has successfully completed the required training.

27. Prohibits a surveillance network from incorporating, enabling or being connected to facial recognition technology, vehicle occupant counting, bumper sticker or decal reading, vehicle color detection and make and model profiling beyond what is necessary for license plate identification or any other surveillance beyond license plate reading.

28. Prohibits a surveillance network from capturing or storing global positioning system (GPS) coordinates, speed data or directional traffic information of any vehicle beyond the fixed location of the surveillance network.

29. Prohibits a surveillance network from being directly or indirectly used for the detection, enforcement or prosecution of traffic violations, including speeding, red light violation, expired registration, lapsed insurance or parking offenses.

30. Prohibits surveillance network data, including any positive match with active warrant or alert lists or any authorized purposes as prescribed, from being used as a basis for issuing any traffic violation or related civil penalty.

31. Prohibits any person, agency or entity from using surveillance network data, including any positive match with active warrants or alert lists, scan logs, time stamps or location data or any combination thereof, to construct, infer, analyze or compile a pattern of life, behavioral profile, travel history, routine analysis or movement pattern of any person.

32. Includes, in the prohibition on using surveillance network data to analyze patterns of any person, manual and automated or algorithmic processing, including machine learning, artificial intelligence pattern recognition or any related technological capabilities.

33. Prohibits any declaration of emergency from any official, including the Governor, a local governing body or the head of an LEA from suspending, modifying, waiving or overriding any provision of the prescribed surveillance network regulation.

34. Subjects any surveillance network data collected during any declared emergency to all requirements and limitations of the prescribed surveillance network regulation.

35. Prohibits any data or metadata from a surveillance network, including any de-identified, anonymized, aggregated or redacted data, from being used for mass surveillance, continuous monitoring, population-level movement analysis, traffic flow studies or any other purpose that involves tracking the movements of persons who are not the specific subject of an active authorized investigation.

36. Prohibits a surveillance network from being combined with data from any other surveillance technology, database or data source to enable broader tracking or identification capabilities.

37. Prohibits a surveillance network from being deployed, positioned or used for the purpose of monitoring, surveilling or identifying vehicles or persons engaged in or travelling to or from constitutionally protected activities, including:

a) political protests, marches, demonstrations or rallies;

b) attendance at religious services or institutions;

c) visits to legal counsel;

d) visits to news media organizations; or

e) visits to any location where the primary purpose of the visit is the exercise of rights protected by the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights or the Arizona Constitution.

38. Prohibits a surveillance network from being deployed within 500 feet of:

a) a polling place during any election period;

b) a location in which an authorized protest, march or demonstration is occurring;

c) the physical address of any 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization registered in Arizona, except for a post office address; or

d) a medical facility.

Vendor Requirements

39. Prohibits any vendor that provides surveillance network hardware, software, data processing or related services from acquiring, claiming, asserting or retaining any intellectual property right, trade secret claim, copyright, proprietary interest, license, title or other interest in or to any license plate data, images, metadata, scan records, hit records, alert data or other data captured by or derived from any surveillance network operated under a valid contract with a governmental entity of the state.

40. Deems, as void and unenforceable against the public policy of the state, any provision in a vendor's terms of service, end user license agreement, services agreement, order form or any other contract or instrument that purports to grant the vendor:

a) a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, worldwide or otherwise surviving license to use, reproduce, modify, distribute or otherwise exploit data captured by or derived from a surveillance network for any purpose, including the development, training, testing, improvement or enhancement of any product, algorithm, service, model or system;

b) ownership of any intellectual property interest in derivative works, intermediate or final outputs, analyses, reports, models, algorithms, machine learning weights, feature vectors or other results generated from or through the processing of data captured by a surveillance network in Arizona;

c) the right to retain, copy, aggregate, analyze, sell, license or otherwise use any data captured by or derived from a surveillance network after the termination or expiration of the contract under which the data was collected, regardless of whether the contract contains provisions that purport to survive termination; or

d) the right to require any governmental entity to waive any outlined provision as a condition of service.

41. Prohibits a vendor from retaining any copy, backup, derivative or reproduction of data captured by a surveillance network beyond the authorized retention periods.

42. Includes, in data that must be destroyed:

a) the original data and all copies, backups and reproductions in any format on any server, storage medium or system anywhere in the world;

b) all de-identified, anonymized, redacted or aggregated versions of the data;

c) all machine learning training sets, model weights, feature vectors and neural network parameters generated in whole or in part from the data;

d) all derivative works, analytical products, reports, profiles and outputs generated from the data; and

e) all indexes, hash tables, lookup tables and database entries referencing the data.

43. Prohibits a vendor from circumventing the outlined data destruction requirements by claiming that data has been de-identified, anonymized, redacted, aggregated or otherwise transformed, if the data was originally captured by or derived from a surveillance network in Arizona.

44. Requires a vendor, within 30 days of the termination or expiration of any contract for surveillance network services, to permanently destroy all retained data and certify the destruction in writing under penalty of perjury.

45. Requires the certification to be signed by an officer of the vendor with authority to bind the company and specifically attest that no copy, derivative, training set, model weight or other data product generated from data captured has been retained in any form on any system.

46. Prohibits a vendor from modifying, amending or updating the terms of service, end user license agreement, services agreement or any other contract governing data captured by a surveillance network without prior written consent from the contracting governmental entity.

47. Deems, as void and unenforceable, any provision that permits a vendor to unilaterally modify contract terms by posting updated terms on a website, sending a notification or through any other mechanism that does not require the affirmative written consent of the contracting governmental entity.

48. Requires any contract for the provision of surveillance network services to a governmental entity to be governed by Arizona law.

49. Deems, as void and unenforceable, any provision in a vendor's contract that requires mandatory arbitration, selects the laws of another state to govern disputes or designates a forum outside of the state for the resolution of disputes arising from the collection, retention, use, sharing or destruction of data captured by a surveillance network.

50. Prohibits a vendor from aggregating data captured by a surveillance network with data collected in any other state, jurisdiction or source.

51. Prohibits a vendor from making data captured in Arizona accessible through any national, regional or multi-jurisdictional database, lookup system, data-sharing network or platform, regardless of whether the vendor characterizes such access as a feature of its service.

52. Requires each vendor associated with a surveillance network to submit an annual compliance audit by the contracting governmental entity or an independent auditor selected by the governmental entity at the vendor's expense.

53. Requires the audit to include examination of the vendor's servers, data storage systems, backup systems, machine learning training pipelines and all systems in which data is captured has been processed, stored or transmitted.

54. Requires each vendor associated with a surveillance network to provide complete technical documentation of all data architecture, data flows, third-party integrations and machine learning training processes, which must demonstrate the system is capable of and configured for compliance with all outlined requirements and prohibitions.

55. Subjects a vendor that violates any provision of the prescribed vendor requirements to criminal penalties and a private right of action.

56. Bars a vendor that violates any provision of the prescribed vendor requirements from contracting with any governmental entity in Arizona for surveillance network services.

57. Determines that the vendor requirements are not waivable by contract.

58. Deems, as void and unenforceable as against the public policy of the state, any contractual provision that purports to waive, limit, disclaim or otherwise circumvent the prescribed protections.

59. Prohibits a vendor from conditioning the provision of surveillance network services on the acceptance of terms that conflict with the prescribed vendor requirements.

Third Party Data Access

60. Prohibits surveillance network data, including positive or negative matches with any active warrant or alert list, metadata, scan logs, images or derivative information, from being shared with, sold or transferred to, accessed by or made available to any third party, including:

a) a federal agency;

b) another agency of the state, including any task force or for any intergovernmental compact or memorandum of understanding;

c) an out-of-state LEA or department;

d) a private entity;

e) a data broker; or

f) a surveillance network vendor's network, shared databased or national lookup system.

61. Deems, as inadmissible in any criminal, civil or administrative proceeding in Arizona, any surveillance network data obtained, retained, accessed, shared or used in violation of the outlined surveillance network regulation, regardless of the LEO's subjective belief regarding compliance.

62. Determines that evidence is derived from surveillance network data obtained in violation of the outlined surveillance network regulation if the investigation that produced the evidence was initiated, directed or materially advanced by information obtained from such data, regardless of whether the surveillance network data itself is introduced as evidence or whether an independent source for the evidence is subsequently identified.

63. Prohibits a LEA or LEO from using data obtained in violation of the outlined requirements and prohibitions to develop a parallel line of investigation or to identify witnesses, leads, locations or other evidence that is then presented as independently obtained.

Warrant Requirements

64. Prohibits an LEA from querying, accessing or requesting surveillance network data without a warrant that is supported by probable cause and that is issued by a judge of a court of competent jurisdiction that specially authorizes the query, access or request.

65. Prohibits blanket warrants, including:

a) monitoring of all license plates at a location to determine which persons were present or monitoring of a license plate across multiple jurisdictions without separate authorization for each jurisdiction;

b) general warrants;

c) warrants authorizing queries across all jurisdictions or all plates; or

d) warrants authorizing monitoring of license plates in association with any constitutionally protected activity.

66. Requires a warrant for surveillance network data to specify:

a) the license plate number to be queried;

b) the specific authorized purpose;

c) the specific LEA or agencies to be queried; and

d) the time period for which any retained matches with active warrants or alert lists are sought.

67. Authorizes surveillance network data to be used exclusively and specifically for:

a) identification of stolen vehicles;

b) identification of vehicles associated with persons who are wanted, missing or in danger, including Amber Alerts, Blue Alerts, Seek and Find Alerts and Turquoise Alerts;

c) identification of vehicles registered to a person who has an outstanding arrest warrant;

d) identification of vehicles involved in or connected to any felony; or

e) identification of vehicles subject to an active law enforcement alert or bulletin relating to any homicide, kidnapping, sexual assault or act of terrorism.

LEO Training Program

68. Limits the authority to operate and handle a surveillance network and associated data to only an LEO who has completed a documented training program conducted by an authorized nonprofit for surveillance network operation, legal requirements and privacy protections and the outlined surveillance network regulation.

69. Restricts the ability to request or obtain a warrant for surveillance network data to only an LEO.

70. Requires the LEO to attest under oath that the warrant request meets one of the specific authorized purposes.

71. Requires any access to surveillance network data, including real-time alerts and stored positive data match records, to be logged with:

a) the identity of the accessing LEO;

b) the date and time of access;

c) the license plate number queried; and

d) the purpose of the access.

72. Requires audit logs to be retained for five years and made available to the court on request.

Traffic Stops

73. Requires an LEO, before initiating a traffic stop, vehicle stop or apprehension based on any information obtained from a surveillance network, to visually verify the license plate number of the vehicle and confirm that the license plate matches the license plate identified in the surveillance network alert.

74. Requires the visual verification of the license plate match to be communicated to dispatch by radio and logged before the stop is initiated.

75. Prohibits a stop, seizure or detention of any person or vehicle from being based solely on an unverified surveillance network alert.

Personal Data Access

76. Allows a person to submit a public records request to any LEA that operates a surveillance network for any data associated with the person's lawfully registered vehicle.

77. Requires the LEA to respond to a public records request within 10 business days.

78. Requires the response from the LEA, if the records are found in the surveillance network data, to include:

a) the date, time and general location of each scan of the person's license plate;

b) whether the scan resulted in a positive match with any active warrant or alter list; and

c) the case number associated with any retained license plate data.

79. Allows a person to request the deletion of any surveillance network data associated with the person's lawfully registered vehicle that is not associated with an active criminal investigation or warrant or alert list match.

80. Requires the LEA to comply with the deletion request within 10 business days and confirm the deletion in writing.

81. Allows an LEA to withhold data pursuant to an active investigation for up to one year from the date of the request.

82. Requires, if an investigation remains active after one year, an LEA to provide the requesting person with all data responsive to the request, redacted as necessary, to protect the integrity of the investigation, within 30 days of the expiration of the one-year period.

83. Grants a private right of action in superior court to any person whose surveillance network data is collected, retained, shared or accessed or used in violation of the outlined surveillance network regulation.

84. Specifies that a private right of action is not subject to any requirement of exhaustion of administrative remedies.

85. Prohibits a governmental entity and vendor from asserting qualified or sovereign immunity or any contractual limitation of liability as a defense to claims brought in a private right of action.

86. Entitles a prevailing plaintiff to:

a) statutory damages of at least $2,500 per negligent violation and $10,000 per willful or reckless violation;

b) actual damages;

c) reasonable attorney fees and costs; and

d) injunctive relief.

Jurisdictional Circumvention Prohibitions

87. Prohibits, if the qualified electors of a city or town, county or state agency have rejected a proposal to authorize a surveillance network, any other governmental entity from deploying, operating or contracting for any surveillance network within the boundaries of the city or town, county or other jurisdiction, including:

a) a county agency within a city's or town's limits;

b) a state agency operating within a city's or town's or county's limits;

c) a federal agency operating with the assistance, cooperation or data-sharing of state agencies or local governments; or

d) task forces, joint operations or multi-jurisdictional partnerships.

88. Prohibits an LEA from providing or accepting surveillance network data to or from any federal agency for the purpose of circumventing the outlined surveillance network regulation.

89. Prohibits a LEA from participating in any federal grant program, task force or cooperative agreement that requires or incentivizes the collection, retention or sharing of surveillance network data in violation of the outlined surveillance network regulation.

Annual Report

90. Requires each LEA, by December 31 of each year, to publish an annual transparency report, post the report on the LEA's public website and submit the report to the Governor, the Senate President, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and to send a copy to the Secretary of State.

91. Requires the annual transparency report to contain:

a) the total number of license plate scans conducted in the previous year;

b) the total number of positive matches with an active warrant or alert list;

c) the total number of positive matches that resulted in arrest, a citation or protective custody;

d) the total number of false positive matches or erroneous alerts;

e) the total number of warrants obtained from surveillance network data;

f) the total number and the identity of each LEO who is certified to operate surveillance networks;

g) the total cost of the surveillance network, including all vendor fees;

h) confirmation that the annual compliance audit report for vendors was completed and a summary of the findings; and

i) the number of public records requests received for surveillance network data and a description of each request.

Miscellaneous

92. Defines automated license plate reader as a technology that provides stationary or mobile detection of license plates and that captures data associated with license plates for law enforcement purposes.

93. Defines surveillance network as a system of monitoring through technological devices that are stationary, mobile or satellite or through any other technological means that are owned or operated by the state or a state agency, city, town, county or political subdivision of the state, including an automated license plate reader.

94. Defines authorized nonprofit as a national nonprofit public interest law firm founded after 1990 with a mission to end widespread abuses of government power and secure the constitutional rights of the American people.

95. Becomes effective on the general effective date.

Amendments Adopted by Committee

1. Requires the governing body of a city, town or county to authorize the deployment of a surveillance network by the affirmative vote of 65 percent, rather than 60 percent, of the governing body.

2. Stipulates that any public entity not explicitly authorized to deploy a surveillance network may not deploy a surveillance network.

3. Makes technical and conforming changes.

Senate Action

GOV 3/25/26 DPA/SE 5-1-1