A data sharing report from a public records request we filed on March 3, 2026, revealed that the UC Merced Police Department was sharing license plate reader data with federal and out-of-state agencies in violation of California state law.
The report showed that the UC Merced Police Department was sharing license plate reader with eight federal agencies, including the Border Patrol and the National Targeting Center of Customs and Border Protection. UC Merced PD also shared its license plate reader data with 258 out-of-state agencies in nearly 40 states. Sharing license plate reader data with federal and out-of-state agencies was made illegal by SB34, which was passed in 2015 and went into effect in 2016.
Even though the document showed this illegal sharing of license plate reader data, we had no information about whether UC Merced PD had installed Motorola license plate readers. The UC Merced PD policy on automated license plate readers (ALPRs)(Section 406) does not specify what kind of license plate readers are used. Since UC Merced wasn’t far away, we decided to visit the campus instead of waiting for a response to another public records request.
We found four Motorola ReaperHD VS-42-925 license plate readers at the entrance to the UC Merced campus attached the traffic signal poles and overlooking traffic on North Lake Road and East Bellevue Avenue.
A Motorola ReaperHD VS-42-912 license plate reader was located at the entrance to the campus Bellevue parking lot just east of North Lake Road.
It would be impossible to drive into or out of the UC Merced campus without passing one of these five license plate readers. This was confirmation that the UC Merced Police Department was illegally sharing license plate reader captured of all students, staff, and visitors to the UC Merced Campus.
On March 20, 2026, we filed a public records request to find out when the license plate readers were purchased and installed, but have not received a response.
On April 2, 2026, we filed a public records request for logs that would show any searches by external agencies of UC Merced’s license plate reader data. The UC Merced Police Department responded, “After a thorough review of our systems, the University has determined that no external access audit log records exist that are responsive to your request. This is because the external access logging feature was not enabled in the system’s configuration at the time of initial setup. Upon discovering this gap, the University has since enabled this feature.”
After an article was published in the Merced Sun-Star about the illegal license plate reader data sharing, we filed another public records request and received an updated data sharing report confirming that the UC Merced Police Department had stopped sharing license plate reader data with federal and out-of-state agencies.
In response to our public records request for copies of any audits from January 1, 2022 until May 31, 2026, of UC Merced PD’s license plate reader system as required by California Civil Code section 1798.90.53, UC Merced responded, “The University of California, Merced has reviewed its files and determined that we do not have any records that are responsive to your request.”
We are currently awaiting a response to a public records request for audit logs that show when the sharing configuration was originally implemented and subsequently changed.