North Star Community Council asks Anchorage Assembly to shut off police license plate readers

The North Star Community Council is asking the Anchorage Assembly to switch off the license plate readers Anchorage police activated on their in-car camera systems. Neither version of the Assembly's pending surveillance ordinance takes that step. The all-volunteer neighborhood council passed Resolution R2026-08-01 on Wednesday, 8 in favor, 2 opposed and 2 abstained, signed by Council President Jade Powell.

The council wants the ordinance, AO 2026-108, amended to add that rollback, public notice requirements for technology expansion, a data management plan, and a ban on police using information from private surveillance technology banned for their own use. The resolution "strongly supports the direction" of the ordinance but says it "stops short of fully banning the use of ALPRs and facial recognition technology."

The resolution alleges the police department has collaborated with private corporations using retail crime platforms such as Auror to act on facial recognition information. The council calls that a violation of the spirit of Anchorage's 2023 ban. Members write that they lack expert understanding of the technologies and "are nervous about the expansion of these technologies."

Mayor Suzanne LaFrance addressed facial recognition at the Assembly's Sept. 1 meeting: "It's important for the public to know that municipal use of facial recognition technology was officially banned by the Anchorage Assembly in 2023. APD's technology does not and will not use facial recognition." That agenda also carried a $598,998.10 audiovisual purchase for the police Real-Time Crime Center.

In September 2025 the Assembly approved a five-year, roughly $11.8 million Axon Enterprise contract for a Real-Time Crime Center designed to receive up to 750 camera feeds, plate readers and drones, without amending city code.

Assembly Members Daniel Volland, Sydney Scout and Keith McCormick transmitted the resolution for the Sept. 15 meeting. That meeting also carries a substitute ordinance prepared by the Department of Law at the mayor's request, approved by Municipal Attorney Eva Gardner with Police Chief Sean Case concurring. The administration argues Case's privacy policies are already in effect, but says chiefs and administrations change, so the safeguards belong in code.

The substitute narrows the regulated definition of surveillance technology to tools using automated or artificial intelligence methods to locate and identify people. The original would have deleted data after 14 days. The substitute instead requires written retention policies based on operational needs, bars data sales, limits police sharing to criminal justice purposes and forbids sharing to enforce other jurisdictions' laws against conduct lawful in Alaska.

It adds annual ALPR and crime-center reporting, a 45-day complaint process, Assembly approval of contracts expanding capabilities, and Assembly authority to suspend an agency's use after material violations. Its whereas clauses say ALPRs let police detect stolen vehicles and vehicles tied to missing-person and violent-crime cases. The ordinance would take effect 30 days after passage.