LEXINGTON, Ky. — Mayor Linda Gorton has appointed two prominent community leaders to co-chair an independent panel tasked with reviewing Lexington’s automated license plate reader program, according to an announcement from the city.
Allison Connelly, a University of Kentucky College of Law professor emeritus and former chair of the city’s Ethics Commission, and Timothy Johnson, president and chief executive officer of the Greater Clark Foundation and former president of the United Way of the Bluegrass, will lead the review to assess whether the technology aligns with best practices and meets community needs.
Gorton said the panel will examine best practices, evaluate whether improvements are needed, consider whether a new vendor should be considered, and determine what other action might be warranted. “I want to take politics out of this discussion, and focus on facts,” Gorton said in a statement.
The mayor emphasized that the review is not an indictment of the Lexington Police Department. “No one has accused our police of doing anything wrong,” Gorton said, noting that Police Chief Weathers supports the review and helped establish a program with strict governance protocols and audits to ensure police accountability. The city developed the program with input from the local Human Rights Commission, NAACP, and ACLU.
Lexington currently operates 125 license plate readers located in public spaces. The devices capture only single images of license plates, basic vehicle descriptions, and the date, time, and GPS location where they are deployed. The readers cannot record video, perform facial recognition, adjust their view remotely, enforce traffic violations, or identify occupants in vehicles. Reader locations are available on the city website.
Gorton acknowledged that public concerns and what she characterized as “considerable misunderstanding and misinformation” about the technology prompted the review. She noted the city has already discussed tightening controls over the readers in response to community feedback.
Sources
This article was generated by AI (claude-haiku-4-5-20251001) based on source material from LFUCG General News. The original source is available at https://www.lexingtonky.gov/news/mayor-names-co-chairs-independent-external-panel-review-automated-license-plate-reader-technology.
