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Crow Wing County SO stopped disclosing its license plate reader locations on the state roster
Reduced TransparencyCrow Wing County Sheriff's Office replaced the list of camera locations on its Minnesota BCA license plate reader roster entry with this statement: "Locations (4) withheld by the sheriff's office under Minnesota Statute 13.824, Subdivision 8 (b)." The ten locations it had previously published: - State Highway 371 and Oak Drive South, Fort Ripley - State Highway 371 and Ariell Drive, Brainerd - County Road 3 and County Road 49, Brainerd - County Road 11 and Knotty Pine Road, Pequot Lakes - State Highway 371 and 3rd Street, Jenkins - State Highway 6 and Dahler Avenue, Emily - County Road 12 and County Road 8, Deerwood - State Highway 169 and County Road 138, Garrison - 26975 County Road 2, Garrison - 35507 County Road 3, Cross Lake The new entry cites four withheld locations, against ten previously disclosed. The roster does not show whether the office removed six cameras or is reporting differently. Source: Minnesota BCA, "Agencies that use License Plate Readers (LPR)": https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/bca/data-and-reports/agencies-use-lprs-lpr
What does this mean?
The agency now discloses less about its license plate readers than it did before. That can mean camera locations withheld from the state BCA roster, metrics or policy details removed from its Flock transparency portal, or counts that go blank or stop updating. Some of this information is reported under Minn. Stat. 13.824 and some is voluntary, and withholding is not by itself a sign the cameras were removed or that the law was broken. It does make it harder for residents to see where the cameras are and how they are used. The underlying records can still be requested under the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act.