A Savannah Police Department officer has been terminated following an internal audit that revealed she shared her automated license plate reader login credentials with her husband, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. Former officer Amber Harpe handed her system credentials to Tyler Harpe because federal immigration authorities lacked direct access to the local surveillance network, according to internal records. The department maintains data-sharing arrangements with over 1,700 agencies, but ICE is not among them, highlighting a persistent vulnerability in municipal camera networks.
Internal auditors flagged nearly a thousand suspicious searches conducted through Amber Harpe's account over a six-month period. Investigators discovered that the queries covered multiple states, with South Carolina addresses heavily dominating the logs and primarily targeting Hispanic vehicle owners. During questioning, Tyler Harpe acknowledged that every lookup performed using his wife's credentials involved an active immigration enforcement target. While investigators determined that state statutes permit law enforcement agencies to share plate data for official duties, the Savannah officer was ultimately dismissed for violating strict departmental policies regarding unauthorized software access.
The incident underscores broader concerns surrounding automated license plate reader networks and cross-agency data sharing without formal municipal agreements. Privacy advocates and critics have frequently warned that local surveillance infrastructure could be leveraged by federal entities operating outside established local oversight. Municipal leadership and police officials emphasized that outside investigative priorities do not grant automatic rights to internal police technology, leading to the officer's termination as part of a wider series of internal audits utilizing built-in platform tracking tools.
Savannah Cop Fired After Giving ICE Husband Flock Surveillance Access
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