Friday, November 26, 1999
Airport garages tracking license plates
Some say it's an invasion of privacy
BY PATRICK CROWLEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HEBRON — Cars left at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport this holiday weekend are being watched closely. Maybe more closely than the owners know.
The license plates of all cars using the airport's terminal parking garages are being recorded through a $1 million parking system installed about a month ago.
The system is designed to increase security and cut down on what airport officials call “ticket swapping,” or motorists trying to avoid paying for a long stay at the garages.
But it also has prompted accusations that the airport is employing Big Brother technology to invade the privacy of people using the parking garages.
“I've got a real problem with a system like that,” said Dave Hatter, a Fort Wright city councilman and a privacy-rights advocate.
“It violates my privacy. Why should I be penalized by this kind of system? We're going to get to the point where we don't have any privacy left,” said Mr. Hatter, co-owner of a Cincinnati computer firm. Mr. Hatter uses e-mail contacts to advocate privacy rights issues and oppose legislation he thinks infringes on
privacy rights.
Lisa Noertker, the airport's landside parking manager, said the system, which uses video and computer technology to record license plates, is not invading anyone's privacy.
A license-plate number is a public record, accessible to law enforcement and other officials, she said. And the system is used at other airports.
“Basically, we're trying to stop people from cheating on parking tickets,” she said.
Here is how the system works:
Each night, usually between 2 and 4 a.m., a parking attendant goes through the airport's parking garages and takes an inventory of all the vehicles. A list of the license-plate numbers is also made.
That list is then put into a computer that is accessible to attendants who work in the garage's exit booths collecting fares from motorists.
When a motorist pulls up to the exit booth, a video camera behind the car shows the license plate number to the attendant, who views the plate via a small monitor.
The attendant types the license plate number into the computer. The length of the car's stay in the garage, based on the nightly inventory taken by the airport, pops up on the attendant's screen.
“This way we know how long a car has been in the garage,” Ms. Noertker said, “and we can collect the right amount of money owed to the airport.”
The system is primarily designed to crack down on so-called ticket swappers who try to get out of paying a high fare after a long stay in the garages.
Ticket swappers usually have arranged to get a ticket from someone who has had a much shorter stay at the garage.
The motorist who has had his car at the garage for several days or weeks pays a much smaller fee, and the driver of the other vehicle simply tells the attendant at the exit booth that they lost their ticket.
They must pay the fare for being in the garage for a full day, but that still costs far less than a long stay.
“We've caught a few swappers with the new system,” Ms. Noertker said. “They usually try to argue but once they realize we have this system, they pay.”
A copy of the motorist's license plate number is printed on the receipt they receive after paying the parking fee.
Ms. Noertker said the system also helped clear up some Y2K issues the airport had with its former parking system.
She also said the license-plate tracking system can be used for other security issues, such as identifying abandoned or stolen vehicles.
“We also have incidents of vandalism in the garages, but now we can record who has been in the parking garages,” Ms. Noertker said.
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