Between May and September, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) looked through 2,036 vehicle detection reports from Honolulu Police Department (HPD) license plate cameras, according to Civil Beat. Each report can show a car's plate number, a photo of the vehicle, and exactly when and where it was spotted. Put together, that is enough to follow a driver around the island.

The IRS got this access through an agreement signed by then-interim Police Chief Rade Vanic. The Honolulu Police Commission and the Honolulu City Council were never told about it. New Chief David Lazar has cut off the IRS and says HPD will not share this data with anyone. That is a welcome step. But the IRS still has the records it already pulled, and HPD's new no-sharing policy has not been written yet. A promise from one chief can be quietly reversed by the next.

Worries about license plate cameras cross party lines. Republican Sen. Josh Hawley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have both warned about camera networks turning into mass surveillance. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Hawaiʻi has called for real safeguards on how this data is stored and shared. And Councilmember Tyler Dos Santos-Tam has said the council is exactly where agreements like this belong.

The Honolulu City Council should turn Chief Lazar's pledge into law: an ordinance that bans HPD from sharing license plate data with outside agencies and requires the department's promised quarterly audits to be made public. Chief Lazar should also formally ask the IRS to delete the Honolulu data it collected, and the IRS should do it.

Sign the petition to get Honolulu drivers' data deleted and make sure a deal like this never happens in secret again.