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National Car Tracking System Proposed For US
bl968 writes "The Newspaper is reporting that the leading private traffic enforcement camera vendors are seeking to establish a national vehicle tracking system in the United States using existing red-light and speed enforcement cameras. The system would utilize Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) to track vehicles passing surveillance cameras operated by these companies. If there are cameras positioned correctly the company will enable images and video to be taken of the driver and passengers. The nice thing in their view is that absolutely no warrants are needed. To gain public acceptance, the surveillance program is being initially sold as an aid for police looking to solve Amber Alert cases and locate stolen cars."
Here's some food for thought:
The coils of wire embedded in the pavement, which are used to monitor freeway traffic and to control traffic lights, could detect the type of car that is passing over by the waveform it produces at the sensor. With some clever signal processing you could distinguish roughly the shape and size of the vehicle.
These sensors are everywhere - you might pass a hundred of them in a day. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to then see that if you could gather data from enough of these sensors, you could track a particular vehicle over the course of many miles. Combine this data with the camera images and you can also identify that vehicle.
I cannot possibly foresee a way that this could be turned against the public in some horrific Orwellian fashion.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Why does it come as absolutely no surprise that they will sell a way to track your movements with "think of the children"?
"So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
Now the agenda of the DHS should be clear for everyone. It isn't about catching terrorists, its about tracking every citizen. Most of their money goes to putting up cameras in cities across the US, big and small and putting up "fusion" centers which track everything.
Call me crazy or whatever you want. It isn't hard to verify everything I said via google.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
Where's everybody's car?
Don't expect to see this go anywhere, not for a long time at least.
On this side of the pond.
To my friends in the UK, I'm so terribly sorry. I'm assuming you will have this technology installed and in full swing by next Tuesday.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
Police later cleared themselves of any serious wrong-doing following an extensive investigation.
I just love this quote so much, for so many reasons.
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At least here in Florida, the law states that one can not obscure one's license plate. But, if one recesses the license plate into the vehicle and uses proper lighting, then the cameras can not see the plate, but the police on the ground can, therefore the plate is not obscured.
Also, in places like Florida where only a rear plate is used, getting a picture of both the plate and the driver will require the use of two cameras.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
If you don't want your rights violated, try riding a bicycle. By driving a motor vehicle, you are giving up many of your rights, most of which have been whittled away with arguments of protecting public safety. You also have the added benefit of doing less to fund terrorism through the purchase of gasoline.
A huge red flag when commercial entities want to enforce laws. But that's what happens when the Governments start outsourcing.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
When my wife and I were in another state, we were using her car, I was driving, and I got photographed running a red light. They sent a citation to my wife, complete with a copy of the photo clearly showing me driving. They demanded that she either pay or give the name and address of the person who was driving. My wife - who is a lawyer - told them that that her husband was driving, and then refused to give name or address. She informed them that is is a protected relationship, that is, you cannot be compelled to testify against your spouse. They gave up on it.
So register your car under your wife's name, and hers under your name. Don't have a wife? Pay your attourney to register it for you. Attourney/client relationship is privleged also.
"You do not examine legislation in light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered." -- Lyndon B. Johnson
Seriously, how do these people live with themselves, knowing what they are doing.
See, there is a problem with that. This is video of public space, captured on law enforcement cameras. There would be no need to obtain the warrant because it would fall under the "plain sight" rule.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
It is public, until all of that data is aggregated in some unknown and unavailable-to-the-general-public database.
Do you mind having someone email you a turn-by-turn itinerary for every single place you went, how fast you drove, where you stopped, how long you stopped, and so on... from your front door in the morning until you come home at night, in your email every day? Do you have any major problem with that?
This isn't about "seeing" you in public, it's about TRACKING your movements in public. Run that through some beta software to track "suspicious" activity, or appear in more than one place that a "known terrorist" was seen (fast food joint and then the carwash? Now you're a "person of interest").
The implications of this are so massive it is unbelievable.
Your car was determined to be at point 1 at time alpha and point 2 at time beta. 1 and 2 or the same road with a speed limit.
(D2-D1)/(beta-alpha) - speed_limit = excess_speed
As the owner of the automobile this ticket has been sent to you under law HTA2009-01 and you are responsible for payment. A picture from point beta is attached for your reference should you not have been driving at the time you can contact the driver and make arrangements for them to reimburse them for your expense.
Note of this excess speed has been forwarded to your insurance company. Should the automated face recognition software have matched the photo against your drivers license you will also have been assigned appropriate demerits.
If an extreme hazard was detected in the amount of observed speed we trust that an officer has already contacted you about this issue.
This technology is equivalent to having hundreds of thousands (millions) of officers watching the public highways and recording the every license plate. Included are also the clerks collecting the notes and able to search through them in seconds.
No society could afford this many policemen — the cameras and the computers are productivity tools, just as they are in the offices or at industrial facilities.
The old adage is, police can solve any crime, but not every crime — for lack of resources.
The real question is, do we want to increase the ratio of solved crimes (up to 100%) — as the technology may allow us to do? Or do we want to allow some transgressions unpunished to allow some "breathing room" for future fighters against some hypothetical tyranny?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
On a more serious note, I wonder if IR camera jammers work on these cameras, and if use of them doesn't trip 'concealment' alerts since it doesn't prevent any person from seeing the plate. An LED array around the plate is certainly easier to remotely control and not as suspicious looking. Might be time to actually build one of those like I've been planning...
A hero is someone who knows when to run away. I am a hero. -Trent the Uncatchable
The vidicon tube is long gone, all these cameras are solid sate which means they are sensitive to near infrared. Conveniently enough, the exact same type produced by LEDs.
It should be possible to create a high brightness license plate frame which will overload the camera and just leave a very white rectangle where the plate should be in the photo.
Still, private companies should not be in the business of enforcing laws or tracking citizens. Private companies do not answer to the public and are not regulated in the same way a police officer is.
Let me relate an incident that happened to me regarding DUI. If you do not like my language you are free to edit it out, however, I refuse to call a sonofabitch a gentleman of questionable heritage.
I used to drive tractor trailer over the road. I was so self-employed when the Federal DOT passed their new regulation regarding enforcement and investigation of such, despite the fact that in all the accident investigations involving big trucks, whether at fault or not, the commercial driver was subjected to tox and alcohol screens to determine his condition of sobriety and/or impairment at the time of the accident had returned result of far less than 1% of impaired commercial drivers.
I entered Utah at the border between it and Wyoming on I-80. Just across the line is a weigh and inspection station for Utah, almost directly across the highway from the same thing on the Wyoming side.
After being weighed and passed for legal weight I was flagged for inspection and pulled over to the side off the scale. I gathered my log book, my bills of lading, my permit and license books, my Commercial Drivers License and my medical certificate and entered the station house.
Upon getting inside, I said to the trooper on duty, "I don't know what you need, but I brought it all, what do you want to look at first?"
He replied, "I don't need any of that I pulled you in for a random alcohol screen."
I said, "What?"
He said, "You were number 17, I have four numbers I must pull in to screen for alcohol."
I asked him, "Did I do something on my approach to make you think I had been drinking?" He answered,"No."
"Well did I stagger or walk in any manner during the 100 yards walking back here to make you think I had been drinking?" He answered, "No."
"Well then, do you smell any alcohol on me now, or do you have any reason to believe I am drinking?" He answered, "No, I don't understand why you are so upset if you have nothing to hide."
I then asked him, " You really don't understand why I am upset that I must prove to you I haven't committed a crime you have no right or reason to suspect me of?"
He again stated, "I just don't understand why you are so upset if you have nothing to hide."
I said, "Are you really so stupid that you don't understand the reason I am angry that I must prove my innocence, though you have no reason to suspect me?"
He said, "Look, this is my job and I have to do it and if you didn't have anything to hide you shouldn't be upset."
I asked, "Do you really believe that?"
He said that he did.
That was three times I asked, three times the dumb sonofabitch indicated he had no concept of liberty or law. Three is all I will give anybody, and sometimes not that.
I said, "Ok, if you really mean that, take off your pants and your underwear."
He looked incredulous, then asked, "Are you crazy?"
I replied, "No sir, I am not. Take off your pants and underwear, we are going to examine your penis for blood and fecal matter to determine if you have been molesting small boys."
That sonofabitch went through the roof, ranting and screaming and telling me I had no right to accuse him of such a thing. I think he would have shot me if he had had the guts and thought he could get rid of the body before anybody happened along.
I calmly replied, "It's random, I have no reason to suspect you, but now you must prove you have not been sodomizing young boys. After all, if you have nothing to hide you shouldn't be upset. What do you have to hide? Isn't that what you told me three times that you believed?"
He was sputtering and yelling at me and soooo red in the face, I thought I might get lucky and the no good sonofabitch would die from a stroke. He screamed at me, "That's entirely different!"
I told him, "The only thing different is now we are talking about you proving something I have no right to suspect you of. Evidently you didn't believe all that shit you told me, about nothing to hide s
Exactly. This is a horrifying privacy invasion, particularly given that it is trivial to create a similar system that doesn't have any of those flaws.
A modest counterproposal: build a database of all stolen vehicles and all vehicles listed in an amber alert. Set up computer systems on each camera with the appropriate detection and set them to log vehicle plate information that is listed in the stolen vehicle/amber alert database permanently and to store all vehicle information in temporary storage that is overwritten when it is more than three hours old. Provide a programming interface that tells each device to check its temporary storage buffer for a single plate upon request and use this when a new amber alert or stolen car is added to the database.
This does two things: it solves the problem of amber alerts and stolen vehicles as defined and goes one step farther by providing a reasonable buffer time during which if an amber alert is called or a car is stolen, prior records can be searched for the vehicle in question (and only the vehicle in question).
Include strict laws that absolutely prohibit any extension of the temporary buffer period beyond 3 hours and prohibit any publication, distribution, or transmission of the data stored in the temporary buffer except for a list of detection events for a single plate as queried through the aforementioned interface. Include strict laws that provide criminal liability for knowingly adding a plate to the suspect vehicle database that does not belong to a stolen vehicle or a vehicle listed in an amber alert or other A.P.B.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
About 60-70% of AZ residents are welcoming the highway speed cameras with open arms - thanks to Governor Napolitano whoring the state out to Redflex to balance her budget. (The tickets taken by the cameras will not count against insurance points - it's only a fine. Once you pay your "tax", it's forgotten.
If you speak out against the system, you're branded a speeder, GTA wannabe, and told to, "Just slow DOWN!", or, "Stop breaking the law!" They don't get that it's all about money (and now outright spying).
Hell, even if the people rose up against the system and stopped this tracking, what's to stop the NSA from doing it under the table with the same system, all in the name of safety?
I single-handedly hold Scottsdale, Arizona and its town council for bringing this system to the entire nation. If they'd had their heads pulled out and not put the system up on the Loop 101, it wouldn't have gained any traction to go state-wide, and now nationwide. Thanks, guys... I hope you enjoyed that paltry revenue stream while introducing Big Brother to us. Damn, I hate Scottsdale more than ever now...
It looks like the tin foil crowd got this system 100% right, and the sad thing is that nobody will be educated enough about what's going on to care.
How would it tell my Civic from the millions of other Civics?
Obviously the system would have a degree of certainty that is dependent on the number of cars on the road, the uniqueness of the car in question, the number of sensors, etc.
The key premise is that cars don't just randomly appear and disappear from the road. They pass over sensors in a predictable sequence. You would use all kinds of heuristics. For example, you might predict when a given car should pass the next sensor, and then if you see that same signature at around the expected time, you can be pretty sure it was the same car. Correlate that with additional data about the cars nearby it and you can increase the degree of certainty. It's not simple, but it's feasible.
you mean like the mandatory tire pressure sensor ones that uniquely ID your car?
The greatest right given is the right to be wrong...
I'm a paranoid privacy tinfoil wacko and I'm not /that/ outraged by this. I'm against it because it is unnecessary and excessive, but anywhere I'm driving is basically public as far as I'm concerned.
If it's done in person, it's stalking, tailgating, etc. If it's done remotely, though, it's merely unnecessary? Excuse me while I attach a cellular GPS unit to the bottom of your car.
Have you driven a fnord... lately?
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Apparently you aren't aware that the FBI mandated legislation such that all tires manufactured in the US have RFID chips in them.
This was done some time ago, and by now, most cars have this.
The OP's premise was quite correct, in that this sensing could be done now, and distinguish your car from other similar models. It's really only a matter of time before this happens.
Welcome to the internet. People here aren't known for telling the truth and like to cut and paste cute stories like this over and over. In fact, here you go, I will do a search on a random phrase from the story ... and viola, here is where it was originally posted in 2007:
http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2007/10/bloodsuckers-in-blue.html