They're patrolling for stolen cars and raising concerns all at the same time. License plate cameras are mounted in the front windshields of officers in a few departments around the county.
Once the cameras spots a stolen car or the car of a suspect; the alarm goes off and the picture of the car appears on the officers computer screen so they can easily spot it on the road.
"This kind of camera is giving us another set of eyes in the car. It's amazing," say Corporal Steven Shephard.
The camera scans thousands of cars in the officers ten hour shift.
"The more eyes we have, the more technology we have scanning the criminals, scanning the vehicles that are stolen, the faster we can get on top of that. We're staying ahead of the game," says Shephard.
Civil Rights experts are concerned there may not be enough safeguards in place to protect the information collected from being used to monitor law abiding citizens.
"It's better to not cross this threshold because once you do there will be temptation of expanding the use of the data. Expanded use of the technology and then you are on the proverbial slippery slope," says the Director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, Beth Givens.
