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Canada's Massive Public Traffic Surveillance System
New submitter cqwww writes "A small magazine in Victoria, BC just uncovered a massive public traffic surveillance system deployed in Canada. Here's a quote from the article: 'Normally, area police manually key in plate numbers to check suspicious cars in the databases of the Canadian Police Information Center and ICBC. With [Automatic License Plate Recognition], for $27,000, a police cruiser is mounted with two cameras and software that can read license plates on both passing and stationary cars. According to the vendors, thousands of plates can be read hourly with 95-98 percent accuracy. ... In August 2011, VicPD Information and Privacy Manager Debra Taylor called me to explain that, even though VicPD had the ALPR system in one of their cruisers, the [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] ran the system, and I should contact them for any information. "We actually don’t have a program," Taylor said. "We don’t have any documents per se." ... A month later, Taylor handed over 600 pages. ... [The claim they kept no documents] was apparently only in reference to digital information. VicPD had kept 500 pages of written, hard-copy logs of every ALPR hit they’d ever seen.'"
No offense but I'm sure there are folks with far greater imaginations than yours (in this case) who will come up with many ways this could be used. Many uses of which I'm sure would definitely pertain to your rights, and not necessarily in a positive way.
I'm with the AC on this one. Normally I'm in the tinfoil hat crowd myself, and I detest the "if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide or to fear" argument... but I honestly can't see how this information could be abused. It's not a violation of any privacy rights -- I'm out in public along with the data on my vehicle. It doesn't deny me any freedom of movement, it doesn't reveal my stash of weed or guns hidden under the seat, it doesn't make them privy to my whispered conversation about plans to rob a bank or blow up the nearest Chuck E. Cheese's. So what constitutional rights are being curtailed or even threatened?
On the other hand, it CAN more quickly locate my car if it is stolen or the gardener who let himself in and abducted my child; it will (as others have pointed out elsewhere in this topic) also make it easier to check for outstanding warrants or unpaid traffic tickets. As someone who has had my own share of speeding tickets, I still can't object to that -- it was my own fault for getting the tickets, and if I don't pay them on time, it's my own fault for making the problem worse when (not if) I get caught.
Works for me. I pay MY insurance and don't care for some idiot crashing into me and causing damage he/she/it can't pay for.
Likewise, the more stolen vehicles recovered the better for insurance rates. I don't steal cars, no problem.
The PURPOSE of a license plate is to publicly identify the vehicle.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Stop the hyperbole. 1984 had cameras in every room in every house, and televisions broadcasting propaganda 24/7 that couldn't be turned off. Entrapment was both legal and encouraged to catch people breaking the law. If you want to put a soundproof room in your house to have a place you can guarantee you can't be snooped on no one is going to stop you. No one is going to arrest you for reading a history or politics book, even if it is about how great communism is. Even if you go grab a copy of the Anarchists Cookbook and get arrested for it no one is going to try to torture you into loving America while you're in prison. Anyone who thinks we're in 1984 hasn't read 1984.
Dear Mr/Mrs/Miss tbird81,
Your vehicle has been identified on several occasions frequenting liquor stores. Statistically, we find that drivers who fit this behavior pattern tend to be riskier drivers and poor insurance risks. Consequently, we are raising your liability insurance rates.
Signed, Your friendly insurance company.
Have gnu, will travel.