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"Mobile Plate Hunter" Cameras Raise Questions
The Washington Post has a story on "Minority Report"-style license-plate scanners that mount on police cars. They are the size of softballs, cost $25K, and can scan and run thousands of plates a day through the local Motor Vehicle Administration database. The easy mission creep these devices encourage is summarized in the article: "Initially purchased to find stolen cars, a handful of so-called tag readers are in use across the Washington region to catch not just car thieves, but also drivers who neglected or failed their emissions inspections or let their insurance policies lapse. The District and Prince George's County use them to enforce parking rules... 'I just think it makes us a lot more effective and a lot more efficient in how our time is being used,' [a senior detective] said." The article doesn't mention what happens to the data on legal plates. Suppose the DHS decides it wants a permanent archive of who was where, when?
How about the "Mobile Revenue Generator"?
Almost a year to the day ago, Slashdot ran a story on license plate scanning.
Start a happiness pandemic
> The article doesn't mention what happens to the data on legal plates. Suppose the DHS decides it wants a permanent archive of who was where, when?
Sounds scary!
But is it cool if I do it?
Welcome to the party. We've been here a while and are sure you will get into the swing of it. ;)
The real mission creep isn't these cameras. It is the license plates themselves. They were initially designed only as proof that an owner of the vehicle paid the registration licensing fee, not as a mobile vehicle identification number. It is only logical that once the license plates were no longer used for strictly licensing purposes that things like this would occur.
License plates should never have been designed. Their only purpose was to be a loophole for "unreasonable searches" since they are in public view. There is about as much justification to putting a license plate on a car as there is to putting one on your house to verify that you have paid your property taxes.
'I just think it makes us a lot more effective and a lot more efficient in how our time is being used,' [a senior detective] said.
Mindless seeking towards some arbitrary level of "efficiency" (which is never achieved, requiring yet more investment in equipment and technology and more loss of civil liberties) should not be the primary function of law enforcement.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
How do I just look up a license plate number, without the fancy gizmos? Just an app or webpage that I can query with the plate number. Or the VIN. To get the owner's name, and hopefully their address.
I'm tired of people driving like murderers, especially when I'm on my motorcycle. I usually get up close to them and snap their picture, and their plate. Which calms me down a little, especially when they start covering their face. (No, I don't care if that endangers them, and I only do it when I am fully safe to do it.) But if I could go home and look up their identity, I could drop by with a note reminding them that they can't just get away with it.
Someday I'd love to send a video of these jerks driving recklessly direct to the cops, and get a call back from them with me bearing witness to the report. Then they can round up that jerk, and I can narrate the video to the judge, and really help get these homicidal drivers off the road.
But in the meantime, how do I just look up their plate# or VIN?
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make install -not war
As long as technology like this is used only for identifying stolen cars, cars with expired registrations, insurance, etc. I'm perfectly fine with it. I like the idea of making sure cars are properly registered, insured, inspected, etc. because I'm the only safe driver out there and everybody else is a terrible driver! Seriously, though, driving is a privilege, and if you want that privilege then you need to make sure your car is safe (inspected) and insured in the event of an accident with another drive.
Where I get concerned is if, as the submission mentions, is if the police, feds, etc. decide to start using this to track people randomly. I recall reading an article about this technology a few years ago and it indicated that license plate data wasn't archived in any way. The camera just snaps a picture of the plate, uses image recognition to determine the numbers & letters, then does a quick database search to see if it's stolen, etc. then discards the data if no match is found. One issue I recall in the article I read was that it wasn't 100% accurate, so if a potential match was found it would display it for the officer in the car to make the final determination. If the technology still isn't 100% accurate then simply storing results wouldn't be all that useful since you couldn't rely on it. But if they've improved the accuracy then it certainly wouldn't be too difficult to start doing that...
Having said all that, if you're concerned about this then you might as well just stay locked in your home for the rest of your life. The growing use of security cameras means many people are caught on video numerous times a day. Cameras are being used more and more to help deal with traffic congestion in major cities, so they can already track cars that way. And most toll roads now let you use transponders to pay without stopping, and all that data can easily track you as well. Add to all that the fact that cellular phones can be tracked if you have your phone on, GPS units in cars may cache data that can be recovered, etc.
So if you don't want to be tracked then don't ever use a cell phone, gps, drive on toll roads, or drive through any cities or other areas where traffic cameras are used....
While all this certainly has lots of scary potential, I have firm faith in the incompetence of bureaucrats and civil servants everywhere. And having worked for the SSA, believe me, I've seen it in action. The main danger is still the same as it always was, regardless of the tech involved. Namely, that some psycho with a badge will take a dislike to you, for whatever reason.
Caveat Utilitor
I don't see a problem with the current use of these camera systems, assuming it is implemented reasonably. By "reasonably", I mean something like the following: Each camera is connected to a database of the plates of known "offenders", such as stolen cars, fugitives, or more trivial things like cars with lapsed registration, insurance, or failed emissions tests. It scans all the licence plates it sees and checks them against the database - if there is a match, the police or Motor Vehicle Administration enforcement can take action. Otherwise, the scanned plate is not stored and certainly the time and place at which is was scanned is not stored.
As I said, if the system is implemented in a reasonably way, like my scenario, then I have no problem with it being used to check for known infractions and offences - no matter how trivial.
Atheism is a religion to the same extent that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
It's a legal "grey area" known as "tag applied for".
Want to be anonymous going someplace for the day? just get a random piece of cardboard, write a date about 3 weeks from now, and replace your plate with it.
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License plate frame with tons of IR LEDs. Then the cameras are rendered useless. Of course that's likely to get you attention as well.
So for just 3 or 4 of these "softballs" we can pay the salary for a police officer on the streets. That sounds really efficient.
Ohhh, but let's be FAIR. How more effectively does this allow a police officer to play traffic cop?
Well, I got to admit it. That sounds really nice. Cops don't have to pay attention to stolen car reports anymore in the squad car. Just listen for the ding-ding-ding of their information systems indicating that the car in the left hand lane is reported stolen.
Ummm, how? This presumes that the databases are updated to reflect this in the first place. With emissions it is entirely possible that the person DID get it corrected, but the database was not updated. This is awfully dependent on a LOT of systems operating properly. I am not even aware that this data IS being transmitted to the DMV from the shops.
Insurance? They must be smoking something. I myself, along with TWO other people, have had letters sent from the DMV indicating that our insurance has been dropped by the insurance agency and that we must rectify it immediately. Problem is, they were DEAD WRONG. Not only did we all have proof of insurance in our vehicles, but we all had proof of payments to our respective companies during the period we were covered.
Both of this situations is going to get pretty ugly on the road. It puts the officers in the position of *trusting* the data in their information systems against the drivers who will probably have documentation to the contrary at least 1/3 of the time. Maybe more, I don't know. My own personal experience and the experience of others would seem to indicate it could be higher.
I'm sorry I just read that as, "We don't have to do our jobs anymore and we can also think a heck of a lot less. Having blind trust in the pretty lights in the car makes it really us for to concentrate on driving and eating donuts".
Maybe that was not fair, but I see it as the same situation as the new rifles that can choose between lethal and non-lethal. It is taking too much responsibility away from the officers to apply their judgment. I want officers to think and interact with their environment personally. I strongly support more training and higher salaries too.
The last thing we need is a bunch of dumbasses in uniforms running around with PDA's going, "Uhhhhhh, doh... the smart box says I got to take you in since you is a suspicious looking person or something. Are you going to resist? Hehe.. I have not hit anything with my stick in like 3 days so please resist".
Now this just sounds outright ludicrous. How can a traveling squad car with a softball that recognizes license plates determine what the hell a parked car is doing?. I don't think it can. The only thing I can think of is recording the dates, times, and positions that a car may be in to apply some sort of rules about how long a particular car can be there. I can POKE a hole in that RIGHT NOW. I park my car there for X amount of hours during which a squad car records that I am there during the time I am parked. I leave, thereby resetting whatever time limit there was, and come back X amount of time later. During my second stay a whole different squad car can record my position and time I was there. WHen applying the rules how do they: 1) Know exactly when I parked and when I left? 2) Know that if my car was there the
What's scary, is that the general populace is able to get behind the wheel that controls hundreds or thousands of pounds of metal, and move it at a considerable speed around people, animals, and the like. Police supervision is not nearly as scary as this reality. If you're driving on any public road, anything visible is in the public domain, and the pavement under your tires is put there courtesy of the government and the collective taxes, so this is the furthest thing from scary for me. You should really expect to have your license plate scanned as soon as you hit pavement that isn't privately owned.
100% enforcement of outrageous laws which were passed under the assumption they would be difficult to enforce would eventually lead to the repeal of said laws.
A little pain now means a lot less later.
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They've had them in operation here for a few months and supposedly have almost a zero percent success rate for catching any bad plates. Of course around here it is probably because they don't know how to use the damn things.
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whats so bad about this exactly?, people that do this stuff are breaking rules. I mean, catching people who failed emission tests is good for the environment and catching people without insurance is also a good thing. Its like where I live, people were mad when the cops had radar on the highway, and the people were saying its just a revenue generator, when speeding can kill people, and catching speeders stops people from getting killed. So can someone explain why this is so bad?
...you'd see a metric shit-ton of comments pointing out that -eeeeeeeeeeverybody- can take pictures of, and store into database the information relevant to, your license plates... how your car is out in public and you have no expectation of privacy there.. blablabla. No.. if Google did this, it'd be all good*. Heck, if an insurance company gave everybody who cooperated with their employees tracking their license plates in exchange for a 5% discount (that is.. raise the rates for everybody else), the vast majority would go for it.
( * okay, granted, there were actually a few people who felt Google was in the wrong with that private road thing (pending court decision, was it?).. but then the sheer number of comments saying that they should have made it gated if they didn't want anybody trespassing.. errrrr. )
But I'm not here to rant on the topic of Big Government vs Big Corporation.
"They [...] cost $25K". So two of those could employ an additional actual flesh and blood cop. Or two depending on just how bad their pay is. I'd go for the two additional cops.
Then again...
"and can scan and run thousands of plates a day through the local Motor Vehicle Administration database."
If that means they catch more people who break the law* and that ends up in a net positive exceeding the 25k (presumably a one-time purchase, but who am I kidding) by a healthy margin, maybe they could also afford an additional copper or two. If nothing else, they might not have to send rookies out to collect on some fine and put those rookies to work patrolling the streets instead, and seasoned cops don't have to waste time in their patrols doing 'quick' checks on plates in the area that seem out of place.
( * I understand some laws are unjust - so get 'm changed. Guess what.. everybody speeding 5mph hasn't upped the speed limits on a large scale officially.. unofficially officers probably don't care much as long as you go with the flow of traffic.. unless they're having a bad day or have to meet a quota. Sucks to be you when that is the case. )
"The easy mission creep these devices encourage is summarized in the article"
mission creep... well we all know what the mission is supposed to be (peace and safety and order and all that) and what the mission tends to be (revenue, statistics, making the mayor look good, blabla), but let's err on the side of the benign and try the next sentence...
"Initially purchased to find stolen cars, a handful of so-called tag readers are in use across the Washington region to catch not just car thieves, but also drivers who neglected or failed their emissions inspections or let their insurance policies lapse."
In other words... initially purchased to [help uphold the law], but [some now] also [help uphold the law] and [help uphold the law].
Yeah, I can see how that is evil.
I'm far more worried about explicit -and- implicit loss of privacy than the throwing of the "now the cops can tell, with near-zero effort, that I let my insurance lapse! It's not fair! *stomps feet*" tantrums. I hate the "I've got nothing to hide" argument, relevant to the privacy issue, but I hate it when people who know they broke the law and then get all huffy when they get caught by a machine rather than a human even more.
Anyway - you want scary.. go to The Netherlands come 2012-2016. Apparently we are all to drive around with government-monitored GPS on-board by then. To have us pay road use taxes based on the hour of the day, which road it was, etc. I'm sure being able to track whoever they want from a Lay-Z Boy is just an added perk they'll reveal when the tech is entrenched in use and they've got a high profile case (a murderer, perhaps a pedophile, being arrested) to demonstrate that being able to track everybody is a Good Thing(TM). Ba-a-a-a-a, bleated the population, as their road use taxes were lowered ( not really - they're making up for it with a wide margin in the 'provincial tax'... which will apply to -all- citizens, not just those who actually drive cars.)
But that, too, is another rant.
I work for an outfit in Texas that installs these systems into patrol cars. It's hard enough to get a current database for these systems to compare the OCR'd license plates against. They currently have no ability to correlate all scanned plates with GPS coordinates and it would take a substantial development effort to put such a monster together anyway. All they do is compare OCR'ed plate numbers against a pre-determined database of already known stolen or wanted tag numbers and the systems as they exist today can barely accomplish that task with enough accuracy to be worthwhile to install at all.
Every single police scanner would be scanning tons and tons plates every few seconds. You're talking about combining that with GPS data, and then also cross-referencing that with other relevant data of what exists in that geography, and then people monitoring that find something relevant?
It seems like quite a bit to store, monitor, etc. Having run a security company and dealt with police forces, often they are under-budgeted and under-manned. I just don't seem something like that happening any time soon.
Someday perhaps, but not today.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Umm they decided that when they were first formed.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This isn't much different then demanding one's papers on the street randomly, 'just to check you out', even when you are just minding your own business.
This is 'presumed guilty' at its finest.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Suppose the DHS decides it wants a permanent archive of who was where, when?
That this is not already happening and cannot be disclosed in the interest of national security to fight terrorism?
nana nana nana - I hear you...
And - if you are not in support of this happening well... you are a terrorist!
Quite a trap!
They are the size of softballs
I'm just gonna start walking around with a baseball bat "defending our civil liberties."
that there were so many paranoid people out there. I don't know how I feel about the emission checks so much but for lapsed insurance I'm completely fine with that. The last thing I need is someone running a light and hitting me then not having any insurance. As for the tracking where you have been you can look at it this way if they wanted to they could just track you with satellites or your cell phone if they really wanted to. Heck who is to say they aren't looking at a screen full of that stuff right now. Heck you know your cable companies can track what shows your watch if they feel like it. Its not worth it at the moment but who is to say that someday it won't be done.
To me there is a critical distinction between two scenarios.
In the first instance, the device has an on-board list of suspect plates (stolen, warrants, etc.) and alerts the officer when one is detected. Officers have lists of local stolen cars and routinely run plates of vehicles "of interest" anyway. In this use, the device would not be used to store any observed plates - it only alerts an officer of the presence of a plate already associated with a violation of the law.
In one respect, this reduces bias. An officer can't run every plate he/she sees so there is always some conscious or sub-conscious profiling going on. My guess is that plates of cars driven by young black males are run far more often than those of middle-aged white females with a kid in the back seat. An automatic plate scanner doesn't care.
And personally, I don't have a lot of sympathy for people who are "merely" uninsured or belching smog. I want those drivers off the road. Now.
There was a recent crash on the corner by my house - flipped a small SUV over onto the sidewalk where I often walk with my daughter. In that case, the driver had expired registration due to lack of insurance, had actually been pulled over 5-minutes prior to the accident, but was unfortunately let off with a warning and, now running late to work, blew a stop sign causing the accident.
In the second instance, the devices are installed on vehicles or near roadways and store all plates and a timestamp of when they passed. This type of tracking should be outlawed and if employeed despite being illegal, should not be admissable as evidence in any civil or criminal proceding.
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"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Like the article said: What happens when this system is expanded to track people's legal movements? Put up enough of these cameras and one can track all vehicles moving into/out of various sectors of a city. Look at London.
What scares the hell out of me is how readily our government will sell this data to private concerns. Anything to boost revenue. What happens if your competitor pays the local police department to place a camera in front of your businesses parking lot and generate a customer list? Your health insurance provider can get a list of people who frequent bars. A foreign government can get a list of all the cars parked at a defense contractor. There are many ways this information could be abused.
Have gnu, will travel.
Which system? ALPR? They are apparently claiming to gather tags but supposedly not keep them in articles I've seen. Getting GPS data at the same time as they do an OCR would be child's play - ask anyone who wardrives! That they don't have a good supporting database is something that time and money WILL fix so I'm not betting on something like that preserving my privacy for long. The OCR capabilities of these things will only get better and they will begin modifying tags to increase accuracy too - just as they have ALREADY passed laws in Texas to allow easier recognition by banning vanity plate covers. It's nice to know these aren't working out too well for your guys but I would NOT bet on that remaining the case once they begin to figure out just how powerful this technology could be. Police want to track everyone and everything unless it's themselves (thin blue line anyone?) so no I wouldn't trust this technology in their hands.
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Maybe I'm myopic. Maybe my tinfoil hat fell off a little while ago. Maybe its because I have a brand new 7 month old.
I honestly don't see a problem. For the law abiding citizen there are *tons* of benefits for this.
1. Living in Texas (and yes, I like it here, even though it was 105 today) there are more than a fair share of illegal immigrants on our roadways. Many of them downright suck at driving. Most of them don't have insurance. Put those three factors together and when someone gets hit by one driving a big van full of paint supplies, your car is going to get wrecked. Your insurance is going to jump, and pretty soon insurance overall is going to jump, due to the high number of uninsured motorist claims. Don't start the "well look at your slippery slope" as I have personally been a witness to five of these in the past year.
2. Being a new father and looking down at my son every night, I would hate to think if he were ever abducted. If he were, and these systems were on every single cop car, (or even traffic light for that matter), it would be hard pressed for that person to get anywhere without his whereabouts being known (under the assumption the police knew his plate number). It might be a long shot, but its still more than exists right now.
3. What do I have to hide? Who cares where I go, or how I get there. I have my insurance, I have my registration, I have my inspection. I'm good to go.
And for the real thick tinfoil hat folks, don't you dare compare this to wiretapping. Your location in a public place is no way comparable to a phone conversation held in the private of your own home.
Tell me different if you think so.
I get not reading the article, the editors here do that all the time...but if you are going to make a reference to a movie Like Minority Report you should have at least seen and/or understood what the movie was about before comparing it to the cameras. By the way, ask anyone that has been hit be some uninsured motorist how they feel about it, especially if they have a high deductible.
All in favor of CAPTCHA license plates raise your hands...
Gotta get me one of these!
I don't know who you're talking to. My name is Shackleford; Rusty Shackleford.
Nice things are nicer than nasty ones.
The biggest problem is not that it might make it easier to enforce laws and protect rights of those who abide by the rules, it creeps to the point where a government can control dissent in the matters where they become corrupt and need to be disposed of. At the point when they have absolute control of the criminals, they have absolute control of those who might oppose a dictatorship or military coup. If you give somebody the right to stick their hand up your a** every time you go to the airport, don't be surprised what goes up there next.
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The history of the license plate:
In The Hound of the Baskervilles [1902] by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are found unsuccessfully trying to catch a public hansom cab. Holmes, however, got close enough to the cab to spot its license number, which became a major clue in cracking the case.
This is the reality:
Deputy charged in assault on prostitute, [Aug 1], Mom pleads for daughter's safe return [Aug 1], Police say Sciota man tried to burn bar
You will find stories like these in every newspaper published in the last 100 years.
The license plate is not going to go away and it will be read by the neighborhood watch and the highway patrolman.
The policeman is first and last the successor to the watchman in the night. He needs to know who is out there. He needs to move quickly sometimes.
Now back to our story:
New York became the first state to require vehicle registration [1901] and California followed suit later that year. The first New York issues were homemade plates, bearing the initials of the owner without any numbers. Massachusetts was the first state to actually issue plates, beginning in 1903. By 1918, all 48 of the contiguous United States were issuing license plate. Although they were territories at the time, Alaska and Hawaii began issuing plates in 1921 and 1922.
License plates have changed significantly over the years. Early plates were not fancy -- just the state name or abbreviation, a registration number, and, more often than not, the year. Fancy lettering, reflectorization, slogans, county names, illustrations or logos peculiar to a particular state became more common.
Beginning in 1957, most types of North American plates have been a standard size, six by twelve inches. Prior to that, different sizes and shapes were not uncommon. Plates were normally rectangular, but oval, square, round, and triangular shapes were used. For a number of years, Kansas and Tennessee cut their plates to match the shaped of the state itself. The distinction for the most unusually shaped plates goes to Northwest Territories and Nunavut in Canada, which have their plates cut in the shape of a bear. Automobile License Plate Buying Guide
We have an acting Attorney General Peter Nickles http://occ.dc.gov/occ/cwp/view,a,3,q,638711.asp
He is considered one of the few trusted insiders our new mayor Adrian Fenty consults with. He will soon come up for appointment as the Attorney General. One of the questions facing the people in this city is whether or not his permanent appointment should be opposed. For example, we now have a new policy of stopping cars in high crime areas and turning people away who cannot show cause for why they want to enter an area. This is very troubling to people who are concerned with civil liberties. After all, we are not Baghdad or a nation where you are required to present your papers to travel. But this seems to be fine with the Fenty administration. It is probably Peter Nickles who is advising the mayor on these issues. Should he be confirmed as out Attorney General?
... that privacy laws were intended to prevent. The potential for abuse is VASTLY higher than any possible good these things could do.
Get rid of them.
Insurance brings something else to the table: The experience of dealing with traffic situations. What happens if you cause an accident and someone sues you (as often does happen)? If you don't have insurance, you have to find and retain a lawyer, and you are on the hook for the cost of the lawyer and all settlement fees. So that means you have to maintain a pretty substantial reserve to be able to cover all that.
I mean let's say you live in a bond state and the minimum is $50,000 since that's what the legal minimum coverage is. Ok, great. However you can't just count on that. The amount of a settlement could go way past that (and you are liable for it) and I'd imagine if you pay out of the bond you have to replace it as well. So you end up needing to have a couple hundred grand, including the bond, available for this purpose.
Now also, if you have money like that, it probably is not sitting in a checking account. You probably have it in stocks or property or something. Ok, so what happens if you have an accident sometime like, say, now when the market is down? Now you have to lose money because you need to liquidate your assets at a bad time.
Against that, there is simply maintaining liability insurance. You pay maybe $100/month, probably less, and get a $300,000 policy. Then, if you get in an accident, it's handled. If you get sued, the insurance company hires a lawyer to represent you and them, one who specializes in this (and specializes in settling before it goes to court). You most likely have nothing more to do with it.
Many people find that to be cheap piece of mind. Even though they CAN afford to simply pay things out, it makes more sense in general to have an insurance company there to handle things. Same kind of deal as hiring a gardener or a financial planner. These are things you can do yourself but often those with money would rather have an expert take care of them so they don't have to worry.
Having been in an accident, and been sued, I will always maintain insurance. Even if I have billions, to the point where I've no worries at all about being able to handle any settlement, I'll still maintain auto insurance because they will handle things if something happens. The $30,000-50,000 or so I'd save over my life of driving just isn't worth the hassle.
For years I worked as a dispatcher for a large impound lot that was contracted to several Police Departments in the greater Los Angeles areas.
The sheer number of people that were pulled over and had their car taken for Driving on a Suspended or Lapsed Insurance (multiple tickets required) was insane, but far worse was the fact that the majority of the people who 'suffered' from their vehicle being impounded could afford to pay insurance. Brand new cars, straight off the lot, paid for in cash - no insurance.
I remember one gentleman who had a Bentley who was driving on a suspended without insurance - odds are he had the money for the insurance just chose not to get it.
I am sure there are people out there who cannot afford to buy insurance (especially with gas prices up and the economy down). However, there is an adage that goes "If you can't afford insurance you can't afford to drive."
Posted AC cause I once impounded a car with custom tags of CMDRTCO.
Wisconsin State Police already have them, on Highway 41 near Oshkosh, and probably elsewhere too.
Suppose the DHS decides it wants a permanent archive of who was where, when?
Well, they'll just have to buy the data from the state DMV like everyone else.
For audit purposes the DMV or equivalent agency computers in most states log queries. Queries may include information from the querying system.
In the case of license plate recognition systems, a private agency such as AutoVu http://www.autovu.com/index.cfm?&lang=EN_CA may be involved as well, and will likely have more detailed records. While not public records, I suspect that for a modest gratuity an underpaid employee could be found who wouldn't mind printing out a bit of the database.
I think it's interesting that companies I can find doing the monitoring gruntwork, AutoVu and Declan NET, are Canadian. Canada has "The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act" (PIPEDA) to protect Canadians from this sort of information collection. Perhaps it doesn't cover data processing originating and destined for foreign lands?
I get my emissions done. It costs money. I pay for parking, it costs money. If someone is not paying these things, they need to be brought to justice.
Already got them in the UK (called ANPR); nothing new.
Just let our fascist big brother society slowly take you over and you won't even notice your human rights being violated like a drunk college chick at frat party.
Dear /.,
Several of you seem to be taking alright to the idea of a centralized government tracking database.
Would you all mind just making a list of what privacies you would like to give up so we can get to work on solutions to those oversights after we finish putting in the additional cameras?
Love,
Your overbearing government.
P.S. It's for the children, promise.
Recently, while parking in Arden Fair Mall (Sacramento ca) I noticed the rentacop car had cameras on both front window pillars looking out and downward, into the general direction of the license plate. He was driving up and down the rows of parked cars, slowly.
I wonder what a rentacop needs with a list of parked car license plate numbers.
Already, if your government wants to find you, it can probably check where your phone is, or where your car's navigator is; we even voluntarily install security systems designed to tell the police where the car is in the event it's stolen. I think having a government record of where I was at any given time would make a good alibi for the physically impossible speeding fines which would put me in two places at once. The only caveat I'd want on the system if the data were stored for any amount of time is easy access to data about my own vehicle(s), for use in such cases.
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
The article doesn't mention what happens to the data on legal plates. Suppose the DHS decides it wants a permanent archive of who was where, when?
Think about all the cameras that are going up in cities and semi-urban areas in the name of "public safety". London is completely blanketed is cameras and New York is aiming to do the same. Then, consider that in most cities, you're driving under at least one red-light camera every half-mile and more are going up all the time because they're essentially pole-mounted money machines. Now they also have these cameras that can read your license plate when you're in shopping for groceries.
So, you're being watched when you're walking around town, driving around town, and even when you're parked in a private lot. Now that we have facial recognition software, license plate readers, cell phone tracking, and even gait recognition, we know for a _fact_ that we can definitely be tracked whilst going about our daily business as well.
The only question is whether or not somebody is putting all of these pieces together into one system that not only makes permanent records of our movements, but can infer personal and business relationships based on who we're with or near. And I think you already know the answer.
A number of cities that use the traffic cameras actually don't go over the 'tapes' themselves. They contract out with a company that gets a percentage of the fines.
So let's think about this. A non-law enforcement company with a stake in finding violations gets to write citations.
[sarcasm]I don't see how this could go wrong.[/sarcasm]
Elwood: Shit! Jake: What? Elwood: Rollers. Jake: No? Elwood: Yeah. Jake: Shit. Elwood: What? What did I do? Officer Daniel: You failed to stop at a red signal. Elwood: The light was yellow sir. Officer Daniel: May I see your license please? Jake: Goddamnit! Elwood: Man I haven't been pulled over in six months. I bet those cops have got SCMODS. Jake: SCMODS? Elwood: State, County, Municipal, Offender, Data, System.
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
... on camera going through an intersection on a red that I either did not see or acknowledge and I got sent a "ticket" in the mail. It's only a "ticket" because it actually says on the back of the ticket that no driving record marks or arrest warrants would result from the non-payment of the citation. And it's from a third party company, NOT the local or state government. You can be sure I was pissed when I discovered that some company I never heard of was handling this instead of law enforcement. The only real official figment it bore was the name of the policeman who is handling the citation. That must be one hell of an easy job.
To go to court and and fight it would cost 100$, but the citation itself is only 75$. I thought about taking it to court and fighting it on the grounds that the burden of proof rests upon the company who maintains the camera and data to PROVE that the data had not been altered. I'd basically argue that without that proof, once my car had been photographed just once there would be little that could be done to stop the company from photoshopping my car into an intersection during a red light whenever they wanted to and claiming that it was me who ran the red light. I'm sure there's some violation of rights existing somewhere in the laws that govern this, I just don't have 175$ or the desire to go to court and try to find it. Besides it doesn't matter because the ONLY repercussion that will result in not paying the "ticket" is that the price goes up by 25$ once and then it goes against my credit rating. How the hell can they do that to begin with? That's yet another WTF.
I'd really like to see this sort of thing busted wide open as unconstitutional until there's some checks to make sure the ones handling the data is responsible.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
This technology is nothing new, LAPD has been using it to search for stolen/wanted vehicles for years now, but I forget this is the internet, you add the big evil government twist to it and then it becomes news.
Once car thieves catch on to this they can start carrying a clean plate with them. I doubt the reader can tell what kind of car the plate is on and determine if that is the right kind of vehicle like an officer doing the check could.
So in the long run this will not be used to combat car thieves; it will target mostly law abiding citizens who just screwed up.
They are the size of softballs, cost $25K, and can scan and run thousands of plates a day
When they cost $99, then everyone can have them in their cars. You can scan for police cars, and upload your data to a common web site that will pool the data and produce a real-time map of their locations.
Or you can log all the drivers you pass by, pool the results with other drivers, and data-mine the results. Cross-referencing with other public databases will eventually allow you to map the owners to many of the plates.
Then we need another $99 softball-sized sous-veillance device that transmits real-time video of your drive to your own remote storage. Including the driver who cuts you off, or the hopped-up steroidal cop who threatens you during a routine traffic stop.
Obviously you have never been accused of doing something that you didn't do.
> Living in Texas (and yes, I like it here, even though it was 105 today) > there are more than a fair share of illegal immigrants on our roadways. > Many of them downright suck at driving. Most of them don't have insurance.
Build a fence. Post armed guards.
Outsource to Mexico instead of China, so they will have paying jobs at home and aren't tempted to try and get past the armed guards.
> 3. What do I have to hide? Who cares where I go, or how I get there
Your vehicle was recorded as being near the scene of some horrible crime. Can you prove you didn't commit said horrible crime? No? Off to jail with you.
> Your location in a public place is
No one's business. It is not even remotely reasonable to suggest that we must stay home 24x7 with blinds drawn.
the cops can always *find* a reason to stop/ticket you.
if you don't think so, stick around. the "i have nothing to hide" argument bears out to be no good reason.
anyone given this kind of power (see the police) will find some way to abuse it to their own ends -- and often get away with it.
"If for any reason you're not satisfied with our service, I hate you."
Ha, come to Howard County where we already have way too many police with way to much time on their hands. The point is though, its NOT making something more efficient because something like this never existed before.
I'm not going to disclose which brand and model of system, but the one my employer installs has zero capability right now of gathering license plate numbers if there's no hit in the "wanted vehicles" database. I've met and worked with the programmers who wrote the software of this system and there's no initiative at all to add GPS coordinate gathering to it at all, in fact they purchased the OCR capability from a third party and would probably have to hire an outside developer to add a GPS feature if they wanted to include such to their system because they are not all that sharp.
"Suppose the DHS decides it wants a permanent archive of who was where, when?"
Suppose they already have?
My wife was arrested using one of these devices. The police in Montreal is testing this technology, they plan to install it on a hundred cars by the end of the year. After speaking with the police, it's clear that this technology won't affect real criminals, it will only catch honest people like my wife. I posted the story and technical details on my blog: http://www.enlighten3d.com/2008/08/03/a-computer-vision-system-arrested-my-wife/
So, the basic complaint is that instead of using these cameras to catch people who break one particular law, they'll be used to catch people who break many laws. And that's a bad thing, eh?
As to the DHS wanting an archive of your activity, well, so what? What you do in public places, like on a road, is not private now, and never has been. It's always been legal for the cops to track where you go in public places. This is no different.
Cops framing people for things they didn't do isn't a problem with the technology they use, it's a problem with corrupt cops. Don't like it? Get off your lazy, stupid ass and get invovled in local politics, where one person *can* make a difference. Don't think you can? Then you deserve to be a slave.
Eventually they'll track everyone enough
that they'll be able to identify "deviancy-from-personal-norm",
which authority needs to do, to discover "problems".
One of the reasons they want it is so that
those who are likely to commit crimes like
committing suicide ( to escape "opressive" authority )
can be caught, confined & drugged, before they succeed,
so they can be contributing to civil machine again, as soon as possible.
Escapees cost economy/authority lots, you know.
Another thing, is that if you want to hide from authority,
you ARE untrustworthy,
and maybe a criminal/terrorist, right?
From authority's perspective?
So tracking by required-to-be-on-you, unshielded, National (rf)ID is inevitable.
Total Information Awareness/monitoring is inescapable requirement.
Discovering developing leftist/activist associations is another reason to track everyone.
( criminals associate with criminals, right?
If you've got the grade/high school "Dirt"-files ( term used by school admin ) on someone,
and it indicated they ( or their associate ) were untrustworthy then,
then those who associate with 'em need more "looking-into" )
God Bless the New World Order:
the serfdom humanity escaped from, returns, under new "monarchs"..
we are Saved.
--
( from independence,
and from freedom )
Rapes, Murders, Drugs, Physical Abuses, Bond Jumpers, Thiefs, Gangs, Dealers, Pushers, Prostitutes, Pimps, Thugs, Creeps, Mafia, Beat Walkers, Con-Artists, Smugglers, Illegal Aliens, etc etc.
Governments don't want to tackle those issues anymore, they have a no-win outcome, they don't profit from them. The law enforcements #1 job is to make as much money off the civil things as possible. They only interact with the criminal aspect to keep the numbers up. But I don't blame them, it's your government, your vote, your choice to allow them to act that way.
Driving is a ***PRIVILEGE***, not a right. Drive bad enough, and expect your privilege to be revoked.
Driving is done **ON PUBLIC ROADS**, where there is **NO EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY**, none whatsoever. So it is perfectly legitimate to have cars movement tracked. Traffic rules have to be enforced, and it is perfectly legitimate to track cars to do so.
You don't like it? Take the bus or the train. No buses or trains? Though fucking noogies, or move to an area that was not moronic enough to trash them.
wouldn't a license plate be "papers" ?
This sort of thing bothers me. When the government throws out a dragnet, it's an illegal search.
There has to be probable cause.
Why aren't law enforcement already going after criminals with warrants?
Why do they have to search innocent people? It's a violation of the constitution.
They're using their grammar skills there.
plus I even pay for supplemental AD&D coverage
Is that so you're compensated if your level 12 rogue gets killed by an orc?
Understand your desire to keep the company name, unfair of me to ask I suppose. If you've seen the video I've posted in other posts here you can see why I and others aren't too comfortable. The system you're working with may be having some issues but no way will I bet that they all will or that they won't just keep on trying until "they" get it "right".
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Viruses, Trojans, and various injections are already playing heck with the financial systems and people's private monies.
Just think what can happen to the governance of a country when "data vandals" hit the information system of a major city. No property taxes for some - more for others. Arrest soccer moms and eliminate pedophiles from police lists.
There is enough bad data in there already (ever hear of a data audit for various government data?) (How about a grant for auditing voter registration lists - who is on there that is dead? A newly minted felon? Moved? Just how accurate is it?)
Just imagine how things will be when people realize one cannot trust the government to be right.
While I'm sure the grandparent is basking in his environmental superiority I'll have to burst his bubble because I'm one of those people who bikes to work. I also live in walking distance of a great many things I need. All in all adds up to a fill up maybe once every 3-4 months or so. However, despite that, I still own a car. Why? It's convenient. There are various places and times I wish to drive somewhere and I can. I don't drive much, but for me the convenience is worth the cost.
I like conveniences in my life, and thus I'm willing to pay for them. I don't need a dishwasher either, I suppose, I could do it by hand. Well guess what? I don't want to. I don't believe in earning money for it's own sake, I believe in earning it to live a happy, fulfilling life and part of that is having conveniences. If I cut everything down to a minimum yes, I could die with a lot more cash. However it turns out that, as they say, you can't take it with you.
Also even if I didn't have a car, I'd still have to have insurance as I'm required to drive for work occasionally. Liability for you with no car is probably cheaper than with a car, but it isn't going to be free.
Another $25k per car (that's what, 2/3 the cost of the car itself?) out of the citizen's pockets so they can feel even less safe driving. And of course no one is going to complain.
The path to enlightenment is truly through homemade drugs!
Mount infrared LEDs around the border of the license plate to blind digital cameras while remaining unnoticed by the naked eye.
Seriously, I think half the posters on /. must be newbies.
Anyone who can't see the worth of these things, has obviously never sat in a car for 8 hours straight. Try doing that for a day, heck a week, ah hell, how about a year.
Having these in a car actually allows the average cop more time to spend looking at the people and places they are patrolling.
Instead of paying cops to do visual recognition exercises for most of their shift, which basically doesn't happen, you have a pc doing the mundane work.
Automating tag screening means more people caught and ticketed or arrested, which ends up yielding a higher efficiency per dollar spent as return on total investment.
Besides the fact that it will reduce the number of people driving without insurance, it will generate revenue from the scofflaws, and not myself and other law abiding citizens through higher taxes.
although rather articulate, I seem to rant a little.. not sure what's a worse hangover, reading that post or the headache :D :D .. no. /nokarmabonus
Then again.. +4 Interesting? I should get some more of whatever I was having
We've had this technology for years (in the UK) and from anecdotal evidence it doesn't seem to suffer from lots of false hits, its had a positive effect on the number of habitual uninsured drivers. And given that a computer can recognise a face with a very high level of accuracy its almost certainly the case that this tech has been tested on a cctv near you...
there are thousands of windows applications that don't work on Linux - thankfully
I live in London, and its hilarious to compare the level of spying.
Here, We have "congestion charge cameras" that record every single car's numberplate in every single street (where there is no "congestion charge" they call them "autoreaders" - they are on all the motorwars, bridges, & who knows where else...): apart from this, all of central London and most public places within the M25 are covered - very extensively - by CCTV.
Furthermore, the public transport is paid for by using a ticket in the form of an electronic, registered-to-your-home-address "oyster card" which again monitors everywhere you go.
The mobile phones you carry have - by law - every single phone-call and text recorded for the government: this same law covers email and the data is available not just to MI5 & MI6, not even just to the police - but "social workers" and "local government workers" have access to it.
In short, depending on the study you choose the average Londoner is recorded on CCTV 200-450 times per day, their mobile is continously tapped (remember when people used to need a warrant? haha...) and their car is under observation all of the time...
Compare that with only when a police car is passing...
The thing is this technology is out there, its very efficient and useful, and can help solve crimes. And you want to somehow 'undo' it's invention?
Good luck with that. The people on here who would like to pretend such surveillance tech didn't happen, and want to prevent it being used are the exact same people who tell the media companies that P2P is a tech that cannot be un-invented, and that people should stop trying to prevent it's use...
I we prevent use of a tech because it *could* be misused, surely we block all P2P tech and all encryption yes? You can't have it both ways.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
It's kind of funny seeing all the comments here when that was what was what was happening in the UK a year or two ago. But now hardly anyone even cares. In the UK they can only keep the tracking data for 5 years because of the data protection act and as far as I am aware there has been no ethically questionable use of it to date. Only lots of people who would otherwise have got away with crimes caught instead
The camera system simply does the same task that an officer does when he runs a plate, only it automates the task. Which means the officer is not tying up a radio channel and dispatcher OR typing the plate in a laptop while driving down the road. Aside from the privacy concern that our location in a public place is being noted, this is a good thing. One /.'er stated that we should not have tags on our vehicles. A number of years ago, SC did not require temporary tags when a vehicle was transfered. So people without insurance did not have tags as did people who just transfered a vehicle. Cops pulled over everyone without a tag. The state passed a law prevented cops from pulling over drivers solely on the basis they didn't have a tag. Car insurance costs skyrocketed making SC one of the highest insurance cost states in the US. Why, because there was no obvious way to stop uninsured motorists from driving and it was estimated that up to 50% of SC were no longer maintaining insurance. So yes, we want tags on our cars.
One other scenario for a country without tag requirements. Vehicle theft would skyrocket because vehicles with tags are usually identifiable in the short term. W/o tags the chances that a stolen vehicle would be spotted is close to nill (unless you own a bright pink VW Thing or something similiar).
I want to see the website.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_e2BC_kXis&feature=related
This system is in extremely frequent use in traffic patrol cars in the UK. They can scan hundreds of plates an hour and the cops are immediately alerted when someone with no road tax, insurance, or what not goes past.
It's not "Minority Report"-like at all.. in Minority Report they're catching people BEFORE a crime is committed. These cameras catch people who've slipped the net. I'd much rather people with no insurance are pulled off the roads by any means necessary, than have them crash into me and make me lose my no claims bonus.
its called an ANPR system, I use them in work to cataloge deliverys to warehouses, if their on the list, they get let in, if not, tough they have to go through their paperwork with one of my operators. UK police have been using these for a while, so far under personal experience they do not sync with the database frequently enough, friends of mine have been pulled over for lots of things only to be let go saying "please hand in proof of * within 7 days or we will be in touch" does it catch people who willingly drive about without insurance/tax/legal cars.... yes!!! but on the other hand it has saved my ass from a long bit of paperwork like it used to, getting pulled over, no proof of insurance and lets say somebody stole your tax disc, as long as their up to date enough they can let you go inside 4 mins..... instead of half an hour like it used to be although american cops will just shoot people with no tax or insurance ..... watch out america!!!
I wonder if we can convince a state to issue custom CAPTCHA plates and we can all register there.
Or invent one out of thin air. Once they have stopped you they go on a fishing expedition, looking for any little thing that might be imperfect.
> Driving is a ***PRIVILEGE***, not a right.
> Take the bus or the train.
Lots of people say this but it isn't true. Read the constitution. People have the RIGHT to travel, but governments are doing all they can to take this right away. Commercial air travel is no longer usable. Some data entry error and they will not let you have a driver's license (the requirement for which is unconstitutional). Amtrak isn't safe (derails.) The bus? Do you enjoy getting beaten up or beheaded? Walk? How far can you walk carrying a few sheets of plywood, a bunch of 2x4s and a few bags of concrete mix?
Some suggest that people in the US shouldn't complain because it is even worse in England. More insanity. If anything that is a great counter argument, because all those cameras in the UK haven't lowered the crime rate.
What do you think Thomas Jefferson would say about the insane concept that travel is a "privilege"? About the government keeping track of where you go?
When the car companies, the tire companies and the oil companies were paying off municipal governments to tear up the subway tracks and get the scars paved over, they knew EXACTLY what they were letting us in for.
This was deliberate, wanton and craven indifference to the information that was already published and widely available (Peak oil and the Hubbert theory was published back in 1956.)
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
if I could beam some strong IR light to the plate to blind the camera or mess with the recognition (only to the point that it doesn't recognize this is actually a plate is enough), while it stays looking perfectly fine to a human eye.
I was watching something the other day where they were testing some new plates that had RFID tags behind the real tag that were tamper proof and transmitted the VIN and the plate number. That matched with ANPR telling them if the RFID tag matches the plate on the car could be coming in shortly soon anyways
How cheaply could you make one, based on (say) an old laptop and webcam?
Maybe one that can keep track of police plates?
Welcome to the Transparent Society.
No, no it would not.
Either way electronically or manually puts the presumption of guilt on the citizens.
It assumes people are guilty by it's nature, that's the problem, not the fact that it's electronic or 'efficient'.
It clearly isn't efficient in the post you are replying to.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Not wanting to be presumed guilty is not silly.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Stop driving
Burn drivers license
Use passport (for photo id)
Put passport in microwave for 15 seconds at full power to burn RFID chip/magnetic media.
Live off the grid (no utility accounts/prepaid cell phone)
Use cash!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
I cant believe this-in Aust we pay a single fee for both registration and 3rd party injury insurance, the insurance scheme is govt run, and it works very well, by having all drivers pay towards the cost.
How incredibly backward, having the two seperate.
No surprise here.
".....and can scan and run thousands of plates a day through the local Motor Vehicle Administration database".
-----And they say that illegal file sharing sucks up bandwidth?! Once these are deployed, file sharing will *PALE* in comparison to the bandwidth that these things will suck up!
However, alarmists may be making 'Minority Report' comaprisons already, but cops have been doing things like this since modern law enforcement came into being:
First, there was the 'Hot Sheet'. Then there was the two-way radio. After that came the in-car computers where an officer can type in the license plate manually. Now, there are these automated scanners.
It's *much* safer that having the officer manually type in the license plate by hand while trying to drive, which is just as incapacitating as cellular phones.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
In Australia cars have to be registered annually, which includes compulsory 3rd party personal insurance. When you register the car, you get a sticker which you put on the inside of your windshield. The stickers are colour-coded by year, and have the expiry date written on them. It's very easy to see at a glance from afar whether the registration has expired.
I like my coffee the way I like my women - roasted and ground up into little tiny pieces.
I think it was last year a terrorist drove a 4 weheel drive (SUV) into a bank in Scotland. The vehicle didn't blow up as intended and a mobile phone found in it was traced to an owner who's registration number was checked against the nationwide system of camera's usually used for traffic control and the guy was pulled off the road within 3 hours.
I was really impressed by the computer system behind being able to scan every registration plate going down hundreds (if not thousands) of major roads over the whole country. In this case it worked very effectively and quickly.
It's a balance between the police/bigbrother state and security. I don't know if anyone in the UK actually voted to have this kind of security but I imagine if you asked the average person in the street they'd be happy that criminals can be caught quickly using such a system. I doubt it gets used for every car theft or minor cases, but I'm only guessing.
In the US it might be pointless because people would just drive on the minor roads and thre's a lot more to monitor in the first place. My thought was that this sytem must have been design and built up over many years - possibly well before the excuse of terrorist threats came into view. Hence it must have been a very far sighted, paranoid and powerful body that pushed for the system to be implemented in the first place
pithy comment
Looks like someone will have extra time to eat donuts
Eek.
,say, George W. Bush?
While I think it's fairly important to maintain car insurance and keep your car in reasonable condition, this is such an egregious over-stepping of bounds, and an invitation to such a vast array of civil liberties violations that I don't even know where to begin. Here's an old post of mine that sort of scratches the surface.
Privacy is essential to liberty. Part of privacy is anonymity. Another part of privacy is securing that which is identifying. It's bad enough all cars (should) have an identifying plaque that ties the car to its owner (ideally), but it's horrifying to have a computer collecting those identies (and, no doubt, time and location information), doing who knows what with the information when it's done.
Part of what's horrifying to me about this is that it is an implied blanket assumption of guilt cast over anyone with a car. A large class of people, no doubt. I wonder if all neighborhoods will be patrolled evenly. My guess would be no. As a result, I'd imigine that the bulk of arrests and prosecutions arising from this new "tool" will be in areas that already have higher-than-average "crime rates", "making life safer for the business criminals" [..apologies to the late George Carlin --ed.] In this country we used to joke about how in Eastern Europe and/or the USSR, everyone was asked if they had their "papers". It's much more convenient now that that don't have to stop you to check your "papers".
Can/do they retain records for all plates scanned? If so, how are they secured? Are these records, if retained, available for subsequent mining for time and place information, like what video stores you frequent, where you meet your extramarital lover, or whether or not you visit the local "cabaret"... will these records be available to potential employers? What about potential landlords? Are there any laws in place to protect individuals from discrimination or persecution based on their driving habits or the places they visit frequently? Funny, I don't recall hearing anything about that.
Ben Franklin is reported to have said, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." I guess history curricula in this country just kinda skip over that little gem... just like those who profess the rectitude and inerrancy of The Bible skip over the parts that say genocide, slavery and stoning children to death are OK.
I guess we're supposed to just trust that the police and the government have our best interests at heart all the time. Have fun at Gitmo!
Seriously, it's already been demonstrated that our government... YOUR government... is perfectly willing to disappear people to off-shore military bases or foreign countries known to be not-so-sqeamish about beating people with fire-hoses and pulling out fingernails to extract "information". We know that YOUR government is perfectly willing to dispense with Habeas Corpus and the Fourth Amendment to detain "terrorists". What IS a "terrorist", anyway?! Anybody got a logically defensible definition of "terrorist" that includes, say, Osama bin Laden, but excludes
Driving a car on public streets brings public responsibilities. I was hit from behind at a red light, completely his fault. I was effectively totalled. He tried to run away but I managed enough steering to cut him off. When the police came, turns out he was uninsured. He got an $85 "fine," far cheaper than thousands in insurance costs. I had to track him down, put a lien on his house to get (partially) repaid. Tell me again why we let uninsured motorists drive?
the ohio turnpike has been doing this for years... lane one into the state from both ends has one at the toll plaza also.
The greatest right given is the right to be wrong...
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This system is in use in the Los Angeles area in California by the LA county sheriff's department. The camera system randomly grabs license plate #'s and runs them through a database for various offenses & has been noted as leading to the apprehending of several wanted criminals & recovery of stolen cars. As far as I know it's not yet in very wide deployment, but be assured it will be coming.
Is it just me or does automated law enforcement give anyone else the shivers?
There's a lot to be said for the discretion of those executing the law.
Pretty soon, it'll be like credit card bills - you'll get a monthly statement for all your minor infractions, or if you don't have any, a "fee" for not generating enough revenue for the government.
Until they come up with something to nail you for: "The red-light cameras we installed caught you sitting at a green light for two seconds while you were adjusting your radio - $20"
Ultimately, the government has a trump card on all arguments against the use of this technology.
They are not tracking the location of cars. They are tracking the location of PLATES. Those plates are most definitely owned BY THE STATE.
Good luck trying to tell the government that you don't want them monitoring the location of THEIR property.
(For the record, I'm not exactly a FAN of this routine, but there is NO WAY to get around it.)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
These things could be used to eliminate speeding over vast stretches of highway, instead of just single checkpoints like today.
Picture two of these installed on a highway, say 100 km apart, each connected to a central computer. The computer knows exactly what time each car drove past each checkpoint, therefore if your travel time was less than 1 hour, then they know you were exceeding 100 km/h for some or all of your journey.
It would not save you if you slow down as you pass the cameras. You have to slow down for the entire distance between them.