Can a Tennessee city's red-light camera vendor pre-screen video footage (filtering out blurred images or exempt vehicles) before a certified officer reviews it for citations?

Plain-English summary

Tennessee Code Ann. § 55-8-198(b)(1) says that "only POST-certified or state-commissioned law enforcement officers shall be authorized to review video evidence from a traffic light signal monitoring system and make a determination as to whether a violation has occurred." Senator Jim Tracy asked whether private camera vendors can still do quality assurance and pre-screening work, like filtering out blurred plates or exempt vehicles, before a certified officer makes the citation call.

The AG said yes. The key distinction is between making a determination of violation (only an officer can do that) and doing ministerial work that produces a queue of usable footage for the officer (a vendor can do that). A vendor that filters out blurred images, partial license plate captures, frames showing no vehicle at all, and statutorily exempt vehicles (emergency vehicles, those clearing the way for emergency vehicles, police-escorted vehicles, funeral processions) is not deciding whether a violation occurred. It is making the officer's work efficient.

The AG cited prior opinions taking the same position: Op. 11-3 (Jan. 7, 2011) permitted vendors to "ensure [the data's] quality" without "engag[ing] in any substantive analysis"; Op. 06-150 (Oct. 2, 2006) allowed cities to contract with vendors whose role was "merely to provide information which the city's law enforcement department could then use to decide whether and whom to cite."

The earlier opinion 16-24 (July 6, 2016) had said employees of traffic camera companies "are not authorized to review video evidence and make violation determinations." This opinion clarifies that the prohibition is on making the violation determination, not on touching the video at all. Vendors can do mechanical filtering; only officers can do the legal judgment.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 2016. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here.

Common questions

Q: How does this opinion fit with 16-24's stricter statement?
A: Opinion 16-24 answered a narrower question, whether vendor employees could review video and determine whether a violation had occurred. The answer to that question was no. This opinion answered a different question: whether vendors could do non-determinative pre-screening. The answer to that is yes. Both opinions agree the violation determination must be made by a certified officer.

Q: What kinds of pre-screening fit within the AG's reasoning?
A: Anything that does not require a legal judgment about whether the conduct captured was unlawful. Examples the AG flagged: filtering out blurred or partial-plate images (insufficient evidence for any citation), filtering out frames with no vehicle visible, and filtering out emergency vehicles, police-escorted vehicles, and funeral processions that are statutorily exempt from citation.

Q: Can vendors decide a vehicle ran a red light?
A: No. That is exactly the "violation determination" the statute reserves to POST-certified or state-commissioned officers. A vendor reviewing a clear, complete image of a non-exempt vehicle apparently running a red light must forward that footage to an officer; the vendor cannot say "this is a violation, issue the citation."

Q: Why didn't the legislature just authorize vendor determinations?
A: That is a policy question outside the opinion's scope. The structure of § 55-8-198(b)(1), reserving violation determinations to certified officers, reflects a legislative judgment that a public-safety enforcement decision should rest with a sworn officer rather than a private contractor, even if the underlying evidence is captured automatically.

Background and statutory framework

Tennessee's traffic-camera statute (Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-8-198) authorizes citations based solely on camera evidence for nonmoving violations (subsection (a)), but restricts who can make the violation determination (subsection (b)(1)) and exempts certain categories of vehicles from citation (subsection (d)). Around this core, prior AG opinions had drawn lines around vendor activity:

• Op. 06-150 (2006): vendors can install and operate cameras supplying information to police.
• Op. 11-3 (2011): vendors can review data for quality only, no substantive analysis.
• Op. 16-24 (2016): vendor employees cannot make violation determinations.
• Op. 16-30 (this opinion): vendors can pre-screen for ministerial filtering, just cannot make the violation call.

The thread through all four opinions: the statute's "violation determination" function is reserved to officers, but the supporting workflow (installation, data quality, ministerial filtering) is not.

Citations and references

Statutes:

• Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-8-198(a) (citation may be based on camera evidence)
• Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-8-198(b)(1) (certified officer must make violation determination)
• Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-8-198(d) (statutorily exempt vehicles)

Related AG opinions:

• Tenn. Att'y Gen. Op. 06-150 (Oct. 2, 2006) (vendor-supplied data to police permitted)
• Tenn. Att'y Gen. Op. 11-3 (Jan. 7, 2011) (vendor quality review, no substantive analysis)
• Tenn. Att'y Gen. Op. 16-24 (July 6, 2016) (vendor employees cannot make violation determinations)

Source

• Landing page: https://www.tn.gov/attorneygeneral/opinions.html
• Original PDF: https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/attorneygeneral/documents/ops/2016/op16-030.pdf

Original opinion text

STATE OF TENNESSEE
OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
August 22, 2016

Opinion No. 16-30

Authorization to Review Video Information from Unmanned Traffic Cameras

Question 1

Does Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-8-198(b)(1) permit cities to contract with private vendors to review information collected from unmanned traffic cameras for a purpose other than determining whether a traffic violation has occurred, such as quality assurance or sorting or pre-screening information that cannot result in the issuance of a citation, before a POST-certified or state-commissioned law enforcement officer reviews the camera information to determine whether a traffic violation has occurred?

Opinion 1

Yes.

ANALYSIS

Under Tennessee law, a citation for a nonmoving traffic violation may be based solely on evidence obtained from an unmanned traffic enforcement camera that has been installed to enforce or monitor traffic violations. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-8-198(a). Tennessee law also provides that "only POST-certified or state-commissioned law enforcement officers shall be authorized to review video evidence from a traffic light signal monitoring system and make a determination as to whether a violation has occurred." Id. § 55-8-198(b)(1).

Once a determination is made that a violation has occurred, the citation must be sent "to the registered owner of the vehicle that was captured" by the camera. Id. Certain vehicles, however, are statutorily exempt from receiving a citation, including emergency vehicles, vehicles clearing the way for emergency vehicles, vehicles under police escort, and vehicles in a funeral procession. Id. § 55-8-198(d).

In short, the law requires that, before a citation may issue for an alleged violation based solely on evidence from an unmanned traffic camera, a properly trained law enforcement officer must make a determination that a violation has occurred. The statute does not permit anyone other than POST-certified or state-commissioned law enforcement officers to make that affirmative determination. And, of course, the determination must be based on the officer's review of the only evidence on which the citation is based, namely a review of the relevant video images captured by the camera.

While only POST-certified or state-commissioned law enforcement officers are authorized to review video evidence and make violation determinations, see Att'y Gen. Op. 16-24 (July 6, 2016), the statute does not prohibit review of the video images from the camera by other persons for purposes other than making a determination that leads to a citation. When the camera vendor reviews the video to sort or screen for statutorily exempt vehicles or for footage that does not capture any vehicle or does not capture the requisite identifying information for a particular vehicle, for example, blurred or partial images of the license plate, it is not making a determination that a violation occurred; it is simply providing information that qualified law enforcement officers can then use to decide whether and to whom a citation should issue. See Att'y Gen. Op. 11-3 (Jan. 7, 2011) (explaining that employees of camera vendors may review "the photographic data" as long as "they do so only to ensure its quality and do not engage in any substantive analysis" of whether a violation has occurred); Att'y Gen. Op. 06-150 (Oct. 2, 2006) ("[W]e know of no principle that would preclude the city from entering into a contract with a private company to install and operate such cameras if the purpose of such contract were merely to provide information which the city's law enforcement department could then use to decide whether and whom to cite for these traffic violations.").

Vendors engaging in sorting or pre-screening of the video footage are not making a determination that a violation has occurred; rather, they are simply ensuring that the law enforcement officers who make those determinations do so efficiently by reviewing only usable information. When camera vendors engage in such pre-screening of video evidence from traffic cameras, law enforcement officers are relieved of having to review video that is of no possible value in determining whether a violation has occurred. For example, camera images that are blurred or have obstructed views of the vehicle's license plate by definition cannot be used by law enforcement to make a violation determination, since the statute requires that any citation be issued to the registered owner of the vehicle. If the video does not capture the required identifying information, it cannot serve as the basis for a citation. Similarly, video of an emergency vehicle running a red light cannot be used as the basis for a citation because of the statutory exemption for emergency vehicles.

In short, the statute does not prevent a city from contracting with a private vendor to sort or screen the video information for footage that cannot form the basis for a citation. The review, ipso facto, cannot lead to, or form the basis of, a citation. The review is ministerial and, most importantly, is not undertaken for the purpose of determining that a violation has occurred. As long as only a statutorily-designated law enforcement officer, not the vendor, reviews and makes any given determination that results in a citation, there is no violation of the statute.

Tennessee Att'y Gen. Op. 16-24 (July 6, 2016) is not to the contrary. That Opinion addressed the question whether Tenn. Code Ann. § 55-8-198(b)(1) "permit[s] employees of private traffic camera companies . . . to review video footage from unmanned traffic cameras and determine whether there is a traffic violation before the private employees submit the footage to law enforcement officers for their review and final determination of a violation[.]" (Emphasis added.) In response to that specific question, this Office opined that "[e]mployees of private traffic camera companies [who] are not POST-certified or state-commissioned law enforcement officers . . . are not authorized to review video evidence and make violation determinations." (Emphasis added.)

HERBERT H. SLATERY III
Attorney General and Reporter

ANDRÉE SOPHIA BLUMSTEIN
Solicitor General

Requested by:
The Honorable Jim Tracy
State Senator
2 Legislative Plaza
Nashville, Tennessee 37243