![\"Ricardo](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789447468_67_c672e131-0cf6-420f-86bb-9600babd4adc_1714417997.file.png\")
<\/a>SAN JOSE, Calif. \u2014<\/p>\nA San Jose police officer was terminated after allegedly accessing the department’s automated license plate reader (ALPR) system for personal use, a violation described by Police Chief Paul Joseph as “a betrayal of the public trust.” <\/p>\n
“Well, first of all, this is a betrayal of the public trust, plain and simple. There’s no other way to put it,” Joseph said. <\/p>\n
The ALPR system is a significant part of police operations and has been used to solve major cases, including the recent tracking of Anthony Chavez, a dangerous armed robbery suspect. Chavez was located even after switching license plates and was ultimately killed in a gunfight with police after wounding an officer. <\/p>\n
Critics of the technology have long warned about its potential for misuse, and the latest incident has fueled those concerns. Joseph said the officer accessed license plate reader data on a personal device last spring to assist a family member, providing the information to a suspect in a domestic violence case. <\/p>\n
“The officer accessed license plate reader data and provided that to a suspect in a domestic violence situation, which enabled that suspect to locate a victim,” Joseph said. “When we learned about this, we immediately placed this officer on administrative leave. We launched a criminal investigation into his conduct. We referred that investigation to the district attorney’s office, and we ultimately terminated that police officer.” <\/p>\n
Joseph said the department has since updated its policies to ensure ALPR data cannot be accessed on personal devices. <\/p>\n
“I was furious. I was furious that an officer would betray the public trust in that manner, that he would not understand how serious of a violation this is,” Joseph said. <\/p>\n
The immigrant rights group SIREN criticized the use of ALPR technology, calling it a form of mass surveillance that creates new threats. <\/p>\n
“Mass surveillance is not public safety, and these cameras are only creating new threats,” said Kimberly Woo, a community organizer with SIREN. “Again, it goes way beyond just one officer and one vendor and one company because overwhelming evidence has shown, across the country, local agencies and ALPR vendors have grossly mishandled and abused our data.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Jose officer fired after giving license plate data to domestic violence suspect SAN JOSE, Calif. \u2014 A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[35939,176287,68617,26177,72621,18340,124444,182770,2322,182771,182768,182769,41304,88,90,89,72095,11936,1970],"class_list":["post-464118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-alpr","tag-anthony-chavez","tag-domestic-violence-suspect","tag-fields","tag-joseph","tag-license-plate-datum","tag-mass-surveillance","tag-new-threat","tag-officer","tag-personal-device-last-spring","tag-personal-use","tag-police-operation","tag-public-trust","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-san-jose-officer","tag-system","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}