H.B. 7202, An Act Concerning the Sustainability of Connecticut’s Transportation Infrastructure, H.B. 7280, An Act Concerning Support for Transportation Infrastructure and the Creation, and H.B. 7283, An Act Concerning a Study by the DOT

Under a statewide electronic tolling system, Connecticut tolls would capture sensitive information about millions of drivers. Without rules to restrict how the government stores, collects, shares, sells, or keeps this information, it could be used to hurt people who travel through our state.

Under a statewide electronic tolling system, Connecticut tolls would capture sensitive information about millions of drivers — things like date and time of travel, GPS location, and vehicle speed — and store it in a central database. Without rules to restrict how the government stores, collects, shares, sells, or keeps this information, it could be used to hurt millions of innocent people who travel through our state.

Unchecked toll surveillance could particularly hurt vulnerable people. This year, Vigilant Solutions, a license plate reader company that has partnered with local Connecticut police departments, signed an agency-wide contract to provide Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with access to its full database of license plate scans, allowing ICE to track and surveil immigrants based on where they drive. If Connecticut does not restrict how it shares toll information, state tolls could become an on-ramp for the federal government’s deportation machine.