NASHVILLE (AP) — The Nashville Metro Council has approved a pilot program to bring license plate readers to the city's streets for six months, despite widespread community opposition.

The legislation was approved 22-14 on Tuesday after more than a year of deliberation, The Tennessean reported. One council member abstained from the vote.

The council members who pushed the bill heralded the readers as a powerful policing tool that could help solve crimes, locate missing people or act as a crime deterrent.

More than 15 community organizations urged council members to oppose the measure, saying it posed a threat to residents' individual rights and safety. Several council members voiced concerns that the technology would disproportionately affect Black and brown people, citing instances in other cities where the license plate readers were misused, the Tennessean reported.

Organizations opposing the program include the Community Oversight Board, Nashville Defenders Office, the NAACP, and Black Lives Matter Nashville. The measure garnered support from Mayor John Cooper, the Metro Nashville Police Department and the Nashville Department of Transportation.

The license plate readers capture images of every plate and vehicle that passes. The legislation states that law enforcement can compare plate numbers against vehicles flagged for potential connections with crimes.

The bill approving the use of readers requires regular audits and restricts conditions under which data can be shared outside of the city's police department. According to The Tennessean, Nashville Police Chief John Drake told council members that data would not be shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. However, ICE does have the power to access reader data through a subpoena.

The bill's author, council member Courtney Johnston, said it is "incumbent" on the council "to at least try to see if this tool can help curb (criminal) activity and help our neighbors and our communities be safe," The Tennessean reported.

After the vote, the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition tweeted that the council had passed the program "despite overwhelming opposition from community groups."

"LPRs do not make our city safer," the coalition said. "Over-policing and tools that disproportionately target Black and brown communities are not what we signed up for when we elected the most progressive council in the history of our city."

While the measure states that law enforcement can use the licence plate readers for detecting plates connected with traffic and parking offenses, Nashville Police said in a statement to The Tennessean that they do not intend to use the readers for this purpose.

The bill allows law enforcement, parking enforcement, the Nashville Department of Transportation and its contractors to examine the data if they have "reasonable suspicion" of a felony, traffic or parking offense.

The readers also alert officers if a detected plate could be a match for one recorded in National Crime Information Center database "hotlists," which are run by staff at law enforcement agencies nationwide. An officer has to verify any match because the readers cannot distinguish license plates by state, the Tennessean said.

License plate reader data will be stored for 10 days — potentially longer if it becomes part of an investigation — and access to the data will be logged and restricted to 10 trained employees with the police department.

Similar technology is already being used by multiple police departments around Nashville, including Mt. Juliet, Belle Meade, Brentwood, and Gallatin.

The timeline for implementing the program has not been released yet, according to the Tennessean.