Six license plate readers will be installed on I-80 in Lancaster County

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) — The Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office is getting ready to install six automatic license plate readers on I-80.

Chief Deputy Ben Houchin said the cameras only capture the front of the car and the license plate.

If a vehicle that law enforcement is looking for drives by, deputies will be notified.

“Then the deputies have to look at it, verify that that is the correct plate and the correct vehicle,” Houchin said.

There will be three cameras in each direction of I-80, and they will be operating all the time.

But not everyone agrees with such technology.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska has concerns about people’s privacy and how the information can be misused.

“When we have technology like this that is surveilling folks – kind of indiscriminately in public spaces – where they’re going and where they’re coming from, I think that opens up a lot of concerns,” said Jane Seu, legal counsel with the ACLU.

Houchin said the sheriff’s office has been using similar technology since 2017, but the technology only works in the three vehicles that have cameras installed.

He said the cameras help investigators during Amber Alerts or when law enforcement is looking for stolen vehicles or sex trafficking victims. 

“There was a small child who was being sexually assaulted out of Illinois, they went by our license plate readers,” Houchin said. “We caught them; they got arrested in York.”

Houchin said the sheriff’s office has already purchased the cameras and is in the process of deciding where to put them.