License Plate Tracking for the Average Citizen

Wired News is reporting that big-brother license plate tracking systems may soon be available to the average citizen. Privacy advocates, however, worry that personal information and associated movement could be used inappropriately by marketing companies. From the article: "Bucholz, who designed some of the first mobile license plate reading, or LPR, equipment, gave a presentation at the 2006 National Institute of Justice conference here last week laying out a vision of the future in which LPR does everything from helping insurance companies find missing cars to letting retail chains chart customer migrations. It could also let a nosy citizen with enough cash find out if the mayor is having an affair, he says."

Comments

Warning warning warning!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your license plate number is currently being broadcast TO THE WORLD!

Punch the monkey to find out how to protect yourself.

Not the point

[A nonymous Coward]

The point of TFA is that these are becoming cheap enough to allow ordinary people to set them up, not just the cops.

I want this stuff made available to the general public. I don't want it to be the private data of the cops, or the politicians who control the cops. I want everybody to be able to snoop on those politicians just as they snoop on the people they want to control.

Re:Big brother here we come!

[dr_dank]

LPR cameras, which are usually around the size of a can of tomato sauce, can be mounted on police cruisers and powered by cigarette lighters

With a mental image of a cop wielding a jar of Ragu while his partner shovels in Bic lighters to keep it going, I have hard time taking this seriously.