SANTA MONICA, CA — Santa Monica has approved a $700,000 automated license plate recognition system designed to overhaul parking enforcement while also providing additional investigative capabilities to the city's police department.
The City Council authorized a five-year agreement with ComSonics Inc. on Oct. 13 to equip parking enforcement scooters with cameras capable of scanning license plates, replacing labor-intensive checks of parking receipts, permits and time restrictions.
Although parking enforcement is the system's primary purpose, the city's staff report also states that the technology will provide additional investigative tools and continuous data to the Santa Monica Police Department's Real-Time Crime Center.
The agreement, worth up to $700,000 over five years, was approved as an exception to the city's competitive bidding process.
Santa Monica operates 30 municipal parking lots containing 6,212 paid spaces, where officers currently walk between vehicles to check payment receipts displayed on dashboards.
Nearly 70 percent of the city's residential districts are also subject to parking permit restrictions, while numerous streets have time limits requiring officers to return repeatedly to check for violations.
The new system will electronically record vehicles during patrols, allowing officers to determine whether they have exceeded posted parking limits without manually chalking tires.
City officials say the technology will expand enforcement coverage without additional staffing, freeing officers to focus on safety violations such as blocked bike lanes, obstructed crosswalks and double parking.
It will also support a future transition to digital residential parking permits and license plate-based payments, potentially eliminating paper receipts and physical permits.
The city's accompanying council presentation outlines restrictions governing how license plate information may be collected, retained and accessed.
Santa Monica will own the data, while ComSonics will provide contracted storage and technical support. License plate scans will generally be deleted after 30 days unless lawfully preserved, although citation records will follow a separate retention schedule.
Parking enforcement personnel will be prohibited from searching historical records unrelated to citations, conducting broad searches of vehicles previously observed in particular neighborhoods or issuing citations retrospectively.
Access will be restricted through individual accounts and permissions, with searches logged and subject to audits under SMPD Policy 429. The presentation also states that information sharing must comply with California law and departmental policy, and that ComSonics cannot independently disclose city data.
However, the staff report's reference to supplying continuous information to the Real-Time Crime Center raises questions about the distinction between parking enforcement and broader police investigations.
Although the presentation states that future investigative access requires separate authorization, the documents do not fully explain how the crime center will use the information or under what circumstances investigators could access it.
Santa Monica bypassed its own competitive bidding process by relying on an existing contract awarded by Seal Beach following a competitive solicitation in 2024.
City officials said the arrangement allows other government agencies to obtain comparable purchasing discounts, while ComSonics' equipment can integrate with Santa Monica's existing parking citation management provider, Trellint.
ComSonics will supply and support the Genetec AutoVu system, which uses technology from the same company that provides the police department's existing video management platform.
Of the $700,000 authorization, $600,000 is designated for fiscal 2026-27, with another $100,000 identified for future years, subject to council budget approval.
The city has not announced a deployment date.
While the new system promises faster parking enforcement and fewer manual inspections, its potential role in police investigations makes the implementation of the city's privacy safeguards an important part of the project.
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