Controversial Gadget Helps Nab Darien Burglars

New technology and a good, old-fashioned investigation proved to be the winning combination for Darien detectives as they arrested two men last month in connection with the "no-locks burglaries."

The string of burglaries reportedly struck 20 cars, a house and a garage—all in Darien and all in one night, according to The Darien Times.

Among those affected by the slew of robberies was a woman from Parsons Lane who awoke on the morning of June 17 to find her purse missing from her car, according to .

The purse and its contents—except for an American Express card—were reportedly found dumped near Fairfield Avenue (in Darien) later that day.

Flash forward to the early hours of June 18. Darien police officer Daniel Gorton was parked near Middlesex Road as his marked patrol car's license plate reader (LPR) routinely took the images of passing cars' license plates. A passing silver car's was one of those recorded (stamped with the time and car location.)

Roughly three hours later, a transaction of over $100 from the missing American Express was picked up at a gas station in Bridgeport. Surveillance cameras were able to tell that the cardholder's car was silver, according to .

Detectives connected the surveillance images to the information collected by the LPR and arrested the driver of the car in connection with the nearly 22 burglaries reported on June 17. Another man was arrested with ties to the string of robberies, says . Case closed.

The data collected by the Darien patrol car's LPR was undoubtedly crucial in solving the case. It's a technology the Darien Police Department has been using for the past three years. And despite the evident rewards of such a system, the technology has been challenged in recent months on a national scale.

LPR is a camera, mounted on top of a patrol car, which is connected to a computer inside the car. The camera takes a picture of every passing car's license plate and stamps it with the time and the car's location. If, for example, the car's registration has expired or there is a warrant out for the driver's arrest, a notice will pop up on the officer's screen.

While the technology can be revolutionary in certain situations, as officials saw in Darien last month, the increased popularity of LPR systems has sparked privacy concerns.

The LPR camera captures and stores license plate numbers from every passing car—some cars that should be stopped, but mostly innocent drivers. Along with the number, the location of the car and the time of day are also recorded so that police can have specific access to information about a car's whereabouts—even the specifics of cars that should not be monitored or accounted for.

"That's quite a large database of innocent people's comings and goings," Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union's technology and liberty program, told The Washington Post. "The government has no business collecting that kind of information on people without a warrant."

The accuracy of the relatively new technology has been called into question, as well.

"This is like fishing with a net, where you not only catch maybe the tuna that you want, but you catch an awful lot of fish you don't want," Neil Fulton, a town manager, said in an NPR interview of the mistake-prone LPR system. "And that was a concern to me."

The system's cost is unclear, but the money police departments spend on LPR systems is said to be inspiring debate. As of March 19, New Canaan was in the midst of that debate.

When it comes down to it, the question remains: is the LPR technology Big Brother-type surveillance, ready to infringe on privacy rights or is it another necessary advancement in modern law enforcement?

Is this a step forward in keeping Darien's streets safe, or is it even a step at all?

(If you're interested, I encourage you to take a look at previous articles from Darien Patch about LPRs in town and beyond.)