Almost all of the letters asked the departments to confirm if they were sharing data out of state. Two letters said the Attorney General’s Office was ready to take legal action if the departments refused to cooperate. As of Monday, however, no such action had been taken.

Most of the agencies were different from those identified by The N&O. They included the Sacramento Sheriff’s Office, the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office, and police departments in several East Bay cities including Richmond, Pittsburg, and Antioch.

‘An awesome tool’

Law enforcement agencies say the readers are a powerful aid to solving crimes. Along with scanning license plates, police tout how the cameras can capture other information about vehicles, such as their type, which can help quickly track down suspects.

Accessing another department’s data, they add, can be critical to making an arrest.

Beyond that, agencies’ desire to share the information centers around a dispute over state law. In 2015, the Legislature passed a bill that said California police departments are only allowed to share license plate data with other public agencies.

The Attorney General’s Office argued in an October bulletin that the bill’s definition of a public agency is limited to only those in California. But state police associations countered that the law does not explicitly prohibit the sharing of data outside the state.

El Cajon Police Chief Mike Moulton agrees. His department allows agencies as far away as Virginia, Florida and South Carolina to access images pulled from its cameras in Southern California, The N&O found.

“I would be negligent in my duties as a police chief to not use every tool and resource available to protect my community,” Moulton said in a statement to The Bee. “It truthfully boggles my mind that some would interpret that the legislative intent of this statute was to undermine and hinder the investigation of such heinous crimes as human trafficking and child abductions.”

The Attorney General’s Office did not respond to emails asking for comment on Moulton’s remarks and El Cajon’s data sharing practices.

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