BART Denies Sharing License Plate Photos With ICE Database
OAKLAND (CBS SF) -- BART fought back Thursday against previously reported claims that it has been sharing information with federal immigration agents.
In a statement, the BART police chief denied the allegations, stating that the information, which was inadvertently sent to the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center (NCRIC), was not shared with ICE.
Initially, the citizen coalition Oakland Privacy said it found evidence that more than 57,000 photos of license plates were taken from surveillance cameras inside MacArthur BART station. The group claimed that the information was then sent to the NCRIC database.
Oakland Privacy also claimed that up to 20,000 of the photos were sent after the BART Board of Directors adopted its "safe transit" or "sanctuary" policy, which bars employees from enforcing federal immigration laws.
BART Police Chief just told the @SFBART board that the info from the License Plate Reader that was inadvertently turned on at the MacArthur garage and sent to the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center was NOT shared with ICE.
— Alicia Trost (@AliciaTrost) September 13, 2018
According to Alicia Trost, BART's Communications Department Manager, the NCRIC stated that ICE "doesn't and didn't have access to" the license plate information that was inadvertently sent.