Municipal police dept in New Jersey to deploy license plate readers with facial recognition

The police department in Millville, New Jersey is getting set to roll out seven new Vigilant Solutions‘ vehicle license plate readers (LPR) with facial recognition capabilities, the Vineland Daily Journal reports.

The city allocated bond money for the fixed systems almost two years ago but had to work out details with Atlantic City Electric for access to its infrastructure and properties. The seven readers, which cost $91,719, will be installed at undisclosed locations around the city, according to police Chief Jody Farabella.

“It’s a great tool, obviously,” said Farabella. “You get a report of a `shots fired’ and you might get a house video or a complex video. You get the white van that goes by. The LPR is going to tell us who it is, who it belongs to, who it’s registered to, time stamped, and it’s going to have facial recognition.”

Farabella said that Millville police have had one cruiser equipped with a licensed plate reader for about a decade but compared to the mobile system, the new static system will be more useful for gathering data for analysis than for making immediate traffic stops. “If we’ve got burglaries in a certain area, these LPRs will tell us that ‘that’ car’s been roaming around in that area,” he said. “The tools it provides are endless, as far as detective work.”

Last month Vigilant Solutions parent company VaaS International Holdings was acquired by Motorola Solutions.

The IJIS Institute, the National Police Foundation, and the Center on Policing at Rutgers University recently launched a partnership to offer training to executives, managers, and staff at all levels of law enforcement on emerging and enhanced technologies including predictive policing solutions, body cameras, license plate readers, machine learning and artificial intelligence, and communication technologies.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  facial recognition  |  IJIS  |  licence plate readers  |  police  |  privacy  |  surveillance