Committee hears broad privacy and operational concerns about proposed ALPR restrictions

Legislative Office staff introduced bill draft 27LSO139, a comprehensive proposal to tightly restrict use of automatic license plate reader (ALPR) systems in Wyoming and to set strict limits on retention, sharing and vendor practices.

"The bill draft generally prohibits the use of automatic license plate reader systems with limited exceptions for specified governmental and private uses," Talise Hanson of the Legislative Service Office told the committee. The draft would permit narrowly defined law‑enforcement hot‑list checks, certain parking‑enforcement uses and limited private access for secured facilities, while requiring deletion of non‑hit imagery and restricting out‑of‑state sharing.

State criminal investigators explained how NCIC 'hot files' feed ALPR hot lists and warned that requiring deletion of official NCIC entries could jeopardize federal compliance. "The files that become part of a hot list are actually hot files... They come from an official master database maintained at the state or federal level," Allison Moore of the Division of Criminal Investigation said, adding that some entries (for example, missing juveniles) are time‑sensitive and federally mandated.

The Highway Patrol urged a narrow exclusion for commercial‑vehicle inspection and port‑of‑entry technology so that screening, weigh‑in‑motion and credentialing systems are not unintentionally captured by the ALPR restrictions. Airports asked for parking and TSA‑related exemptions to preserve curb management and security obligations. Privacy experts and civil‑liberties groups praised the aggressive retention limits and urged transparent vendor disclosures about device capabilities and AI functions.

Committee members agreed there were multiple important tradeoffs and signaled they will carry the draft forward to collect targeted technical input and to refine carve‑outs and retention language before formal action.