Watched on Every Road | Hundreds of Cameras Coming to Hawaii
Hundreds of Cameras Coming to Hawaii
The state Department of Law Enforcement will be installing license plate readers across Hawaiʻi, with about 400 cameras planned statewide. DLE’s director says the number and placement are still being determined, and he names agricultural crime as a main purpose, particularly on Hawaiʻi Island. DLE already operates cameras on Oʻahu and is now moving to Hawaiʻi Island. The Hawaiʻi County Police Department has no license plate cameras in operation, so the state is moving in instead.
A network is being planned before DLE has posted its ALPR policy document. DLE’s website summarizes its practices, but its “View Policy” button does not link to a document. The website claims that DLE’s use of ALPR is “governed by department policy”. The Public First Law Center recorded no policy posted as of September. So governed by what policy? One plan is to mount cameras onto Department of Transportation infrastructure.
Dragnet
A camera aimed at a ranch road reads every plate that passes, its owner, and where they are headed. Each record captures the plate, an image of the vehicle, and the date, time, and location. Stored records let a user precisely track a car.
Libertarians hold a simple standard. The government may examine a person once it has individualized reason to suspect them. Tracking and logging everyone preemptively reverses that necessary order. The LNC resolution passed on July 5 calls for a warrant based on individualized probable cause before an agency collects location data. At a minimum, anyone who wants to search stored plate data should need a warrant naming the vehicle or individual and the suspected crime.
Software Capabilities
In May 2025, Genetec announced it had integrated its Cloudrunner product with the SaferWatch alert platform, a project developed with DLE. DLE’s records list Cloudrunner among its software.
The vendor’s brochure shows how much more than plate reading the product does. It filters by make, model, color, and vehicle type. Its live monitoring lets investigators track and follow perpetrators in real time. It says it can help identify drivers with “unusual behavior” when no one has come forward. It supports hotlists, including agency-uploaded lists and federal NCIC support. The data sits in a Genetec-hosted, government-approved cloud.
Again, the brochure describes what the product can do, but does not say how DLE has configured it. Those settings are decided inside the agency, and the public has no way of confirming them.
Promises, Promises
DLE’s website says it does not sell plate data, keeps records for 90 days, and logs searches. In a records response posted by the Public First Law Center, DLE listed its data sharing with federal or state agencies or third parties as “None.” Its website FAQ contradictorally says the information may be shared with authorized law enforcement partners.
These are the agency’s loose statements about its own future conduct. A director can revise them, and a successor can ignore them. The 90-day limit is not a hard rule. DLE’s own site exempts records preserved as evidence or needed for an active investigation. The vendor’s brochure lists 90 days as the software’s default retention, with an option to keep data for up to one year.
As far as we could find, Hawaiʻi has no dedicated statute on how law enforcement collects, retains, or shares plate reader data. The Legislature came close this year. HB 2033 would have let counties use plate readers to cite expired registration and safety checks. It did not become law. The Senate version dropped the House’s retention language and left the details to Department of Transportation rulemaking.
On Oʻahu, the IRS reviewed 2,036 files from Honolulu police plate cameras recorded between May and September. The access came through a data-sharing memorandum signed by then-interim Chief Rade Vanic. Neither the Police Commission nor the City Council knew about the agreement. Chief David Lazar, who took over July 2, ended it after learning of it, but the IRS still holds five months of plate records.
Many Open Questions
The detection report DLE released under the public records law includes a field labeled “Shared read.” The vendor advertises data sharing that connects an agency with neighboring communities and other evidence-gathering systems. DLE should say what that field records, whether sharing is switched off, and how the public can verify that their data is safe.
DLE says records are deleted at 90 days, but it has not said how long preserved records are kept. The software can export reads to Excel and to the vendor’s evidence system.
Oversight is thin. The civil liberties law firm maintains a comprehensive, open-access public tracker called The IJ Database of ALPR Abuse. Their reporting documents more than 100 specific instances of officers across multiple states using surveillance networks like Flock Safety to stalk romantic partners or conduct unauthorized personal surveillance
Drivers should be able to see their own records. Honolulu police say individuals may be able to request their own vehicle detection reports. It should be considered a legal right.
Last, who sets the rules? Hawaiʻi County Councilmember Heather Kimball wants vendors barred from sharing data and required to report breaches. She told KHON2 her focus is vendor contracting. Whether a county ordinance can reach a state department is a legal question that will likely end up with attorneys.
ACLU of Hawaiʻi legal director Wookie Kim said databases like these can be mined to piece together a picture of someone’s life and whereabouts. HGEA Executive Director Randy Perreira called for full scrutiny to ensure civil liberties are protected. At a Maui committee hearing, dozens of residents urged officials to ban or sharply restrict plate readers and facial recognition. The committee then advanced Bill 113, which would ban the sale of plate data, by a 7-1 vote. Hawaiʻi Police Department Chief Reed Mahuna has said public meetings will be held before any cameras are installed. We will keeping an eye out for any successor in 2027, and we will continue to do so.
The Principle
LPHI testified for the 2002 repeal of the Van Cam program, and the same arguments apply to plate readers. Honolulu police have run mobile readers since 2012.
Hawaii’s constitution names privacy explicitly as a right and bars unreasonable searches and invasions of privacy. The U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings in Carpenter and Chatrie point to the same protections. If police need a warrant to ask Google where a phone has been, why are we not doing the same for cars?
What You Can Do
Hundreds of cameras are coming to Hawaii, but we can speak up and hopefully change the tide. LPHI will continue to help monitor these developments.
DLE accepts public comments at law.svt@hawaii.gov,
The department intends to begin talks with community stakeholders. Show up when they do.
Watch for the Hawaiʻi County Council drafts as well.
Help us put an end to the surveilance state:
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