Guest Editorial … Why Hamtramck should get rid of its parking meters

By Angela Schöpke-Gonzalez
When the City of Hamtramck (City) entered into a contract with Municipal Parking Services (MPS) for the provision of parking services through MPS’ Sentry System, the system was meant to generate revenue for the City and MPS, increase traffic to local businesses, reduce illegal and dangerous parking behavior, increase parking compliance, and provide access to paying for parking through multiple modalities.
However, aside from generating revenue for the City and MPS, it is not clear that the Sentry System met these goals.
Instead, numerous public complaints have surfaced about people not understanding why they were receiving parking tickets, decreased traffic to businesses (instead of increased), and the potential of MPS sharing photo data with immigration and law enforcement.
The last of these concerns is rooted in:
1) The risk of family separation and deportation by immigration enforcement agencies based on license plate data.
2) And the risk of Michigan State Police facial recognition technology’s potential application to photo data (like that collected by MPS), which has been known to lead to wrongful arrests of people with darker skin tones.
Cameras mounted on the Sentry System’s SafetySticks and ParkingSticks take photos angled at license plates. Reports by the American Civil Liberties Union, Washington Post, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation show that companies are known to provide license plate data to immigration enforcement agencies, who then use those data to deport individuals.
Even if they haven’t yet, the risk exists that MPS can provide license plate data to immigration enforcement agencies in the future if they choose or are required to do so, as they state in their privacy policy.
Photos of license plates taken by the Sentry System can also capture surrounding context, like a vehicle’s driver. Law enforcement agencies are able to get access to Sentry System data through search warrants, geofence warrants, or administrative subpoenas.
Once law enforcement has those data, they can apply facial recognition technologies to MPS’ photos. While at a City Council Meeting on Aug. 13, 2024 MPS said that so far it has not seen any people’s faces captured in its photos, the risk of facial data being captured and shared with law enforcement still exists.
In a city where US Census Bureau reports that 41.9% of our population was born outside of the US from 2017-2021 and about 45% of us report being non-White, the risks of family separation, deportation, and wrongful arrest based on either license plate data or facial data collected by the Sentry System are especially heightened.
Given these urgent civil rights risks, when the City reaches the end of its contract with MPS in 2025, I encourage City Council to decline renewal of its contract.
This is the clearest path to reducing risk to Hamtramck residents: if no data are collected, there are no risks of those data being used for immigration or law enforcement. To fill the gap in parking service needs, I suggest watching the City of Flint’s approach after it declined its own contract renewal with MPS in 2024 over residents’ concerns.
I also encourage the City to create a local ordinance on data retention that prioritizes Hamtramck residents’ privacy — currently, MPS can keep data about Hamtramck residents indefinitely.
An ordinance could be modeled on the State of Michigan’s 2022 approved General Schedule #11 for Law Enforcement. An ordinance does not fully eliminate risks to residents, but it can at least reduce risks if the City chooses to renew its contract with MPS or if the City enters into other contracts with companies that collect data about residents.
I have prepared a more detailed report on this topic with links to more resources, including references for the claims I made here, at: https://dx.doi.org/10.7302/23635
(Angela Schopke-Gonzalez is a Hamtramck resident.)
Posted Aug. 23, 2024