Slashdot Mirror
ACLU Questions Privacy of License Plate Scanners
coastal984 writes with news that the American Civil Liberties Union is launching a nation-wide effort to find out how police departments are using and retaining information gathered from license plate scanners. They've sent FOIA requests to departments in 38 states, as well as the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Transportation.
"It’s not an exaggeration to say that in ten years there will be [automatic license plate readers] just about everywhere, making detailed records of every driver’s every movement, and storing it for who knows how long. In some cases, we know that the worst-case scenario—vast databases with records of movements of massive numbers of people—is already happening. To avoid this fate we need to convince the nation and our lawmakers to take action on this serious threat to our liberty. And to make a convincing case, we need to know a lot more about the problem as it stands. Last year, most people didn’t know why we should call our mobiles 'trackers' instead of phones; there was very little public information on how police departments were using our phones to track our location. The ACLU stepped in and spearheaded a massive public records project, bringing together affiliates from every part of the country, obtaining documents that showed how police nationwide were getting access to our intimate information without judicial oversight."
Looks like Steve Jobs was on to something - except, of course, that it's just as easy to be tracked when you're the only car that doesn't have plates.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Just privatize the registration of automobiles and the operation of the license plate tracking cameras. That way, "the free market" will take care of everything. What could possibly go wrong. Oh..., wait.
There's nothing requiring the owner of the car to be the one driving it.
It's possible to rent on RelayRides too.
Imagine what that does to the data set.
Anyone can sit down and write down liscense plate numbers. Citizens have done this on their own when they have suspected a house on their block of drug trafficking. Very few would consider this to be an invasion of privacy.
Police officers routinely check license plates against a registry of stolen cars. Few would consider this to be an invasion of privacy.
If police placed a device on my car that told them where I was 24/7, I'd consider that an invasion of privacy.
Having traffic plate scanners all over the place seems like an extension of case #2 where the police are checking license plates on their own... but simply using technology to speed up the process. Where is the line? Is it the automation and efficiency? Would we be upset if automated systems were in place to catch stolen cars or those with outstanding warrants? Or is it storing of the data so that someone else can use the data later for a non-law enforcement type purpose? Would we have a problem with the system if it was incapable of storing the data?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
We all know some nonsense excuse will come about taking away every remaining civil liberty we have in the name of fighting boogeyman terrorists.
walk, ride a bike, take the bus, hire a cab, limo, rickshaw, or horse drawn carriage, etc...
Just make the data publicly accessible. If the overlords want to create a database of what peons do, like, say, go, wear, .... Just put it online in a publicly accessible database and justify keeping the data to the Legislative and Judicial branches. Further -- no excepting anyone from being included in the database or from accessing it. Public pressure will serve to keep things honest.
I heard the FAA has been tracking airplanes for years!
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
My van has a custom built (By me) License plate frame that unless you are DIRECTLY dead on line of sight,all you see is a 1 finger salute.The Van give the bird to any cameras or scanners out there.
Geek Hillbilly
All the more reason to ride a bike.
I had not realized that license plate scanners had privacy. The summary does not seem to address the issue of whether the ACLU thinks that license place scanners should have privacy and don't or if they should not have privacy and do.
Reading the summary it seems that the ACLU is not questioning the privacy of license plate scanners, but is instead questioning the impact of license plate scanners on privacy. That is a very different question.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I had a friend who got a $300 fine for driving with expired registration in the mail, because a police car flagged his car (Flagged when he was driving to the DMV to renew it), then months later they mailed him the fine, because the city needed some extra revenue. The same thing with traffic camera. I am OK with them monitoring the road, but if you are going to fine someone it should be done in real time. A parking ticket, when you get back to your car, you know you made a mistake. You run a red light, then you see Blue (or Red in NY) blinking behind you, you know what you did. These Delayed fines, are not helpful in solving bad behaviors, because too much time has gone by. Chances are the person doesn't even remember the act.
We have all made mistakes, and not get caught.
I have Ran Red Lights, not out of malice or being in a rush, but my mind was focusing on the car in front of me, or the guy tailgating me from behind, or just a brain fart of thinking Red is Go and Green is stop. (Red and Green are opposite colors and if you see the lights out of your direct vision, they can seem the same color.)
I have missed the Do not turn on Red Signs (as they place them where you can't read the sign if you are stopped at a red light.)
It is part of a bigger problem of Government thinking it is OK, to make revenue off of Fines, Then working hard to try to catch people breaking them.
Lets put the Traffic Lights upside down, so we can flag all the color blind people (or sideways like in Rochester, NY). Or lets make all the stop signs Green Circles. The heck with safety, we just need to bring in revenue.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
These people won't rest until every phone can be tapped, every email recorded in a forever-database, every face recognized from 500 feet away by nextgen CCTV cameras, every car's whereabouts tracked via RFID or license plate readers... You get the idea. ----- For the people in power, all this surveillance and more is how the future "should look like". ------ They don't like the idea of peopel having some privacy. They don't like the idea of people being free, or having some secrets. That's not how the future THEY WANT looks like. ------ 10 - 20 years from, every little bit of liberty and privacy we take for granted may be gone, forever. Every step you take will be recorded. Every statement you utter also. Every phone conversation you have with someone. Every place you browse on the web. Every channel you watch on your TV. ------ These people cannot live with the idea of a FREE AND FAIR FUTURE for mankind. They are psychologically programmed to feel a need to watch everyone, all the time, and record everything for future evaluation. ------ Goodbye, old & free world. It was nice to experience you, even if it didn't last very long... --------
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
... in the modern era. What about GEO IP location, or identifying people by their IP address + browsing history (everytime you visit a website, multiple websites are tracking you).
Buzzwords like: Ad Serving, Traffic Analytics, Content Customization, are just euphamisms for identifying end users, their interests, spending habits, etc.
The below company has blizzard entertainment and others as a clients, you can bet they are using it to identify where their users live, what their income levels are, etc. It's trivial to identify people once you have enough information. Especially isnce IP addresses often give away a persons physical location.
http://www.maxmind.com/app/ip-location
No one has the resources to deal with it, it's like piracy you can't stop it even if you'd want to and big business has an interest in furthering its criminality and criminalizing anything that gets in its way.
A license plate number only tells who the car is registered to and not the person who is driving it, like an I.P. address may tell who paid for the internet access but not who is using that connection at any moment in time.
I am sorry officer it was my dog driving the car.
If we look at things optimistically, you may successfully persuade police departments and other government agencies to ignore this publicly visible data.
But regardless of whether you succeed at that or not, if you concentrate on the scanning tech rather than the visible plate, then you have a 0% chance of addressing the privacy concerns. Even if you stop government from looking at the plates, what about the other 99% of the population who is able to see the plates?
This reminds me of situations where people send plaintext emails, find out the one of the dozens or hundreds of parties who is able to read those emails (government) happens to actually be doing it, and then say that making government stop doing that, will solve the problem. *facepalm*
Either become ok with your license plate being a cookie, or lobby to end license plates (and that, I admit, is a very hard position to take). There is no middle solution, and approaches that involve putting scanning genies back into bottles, are stupid on the face of it and 100% guaranteed to not work -- and even that is assuming you can get government to do what you want.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
If the government is using our money to build these systems, they should make the data available publicly, in real time. While I'd much rather they didn't collect it at all, knowing where the police cruisers are at all times would be some small compensation.
Why not also work on developing countermeasures? Would some high-power IR LEDs pointed at your license plate along with the normal plate illumination lights have any effect? Polarizing filters?
But they have likely saved me a few traffic stops, to say the least. My Truck hasn't had up-to-date registration stickers on the plates in nearly a year, and I haven't been pulled over once. I paid registration, but CA DMV simply sent the stickers to the wrong address and I decided it wasn't worth my time to correct their mistake. Mind you, I've had a lot of cops suddenly pull up behind me, only to lose interest and change lanes/move away about 30-60 seconds later. So.... yeah, an invasion of privacy is likely, but it does improve police work.
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
If Scalia can get past the four-letter-words while convincing his fellow Justices that this is clearly unConstitutional.
But our goverment is so willing to trample the Constitution just because they have the technology to do so. This is a fight worth fighting. And others as well.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
The real threat, that the ACLU knows very clearly, is that the clearest path to government oppression of its citizens is to follow the path of China and other totalitarian regimes, and put together a massive dossier on every citizen. Then, anytime the government wants to crack down on a citizen, it has all the information it needs to put the citizen away. As any police officer will tell you, with over 5,000 federal laws, and countless local state and municipal laws, every citizen breaks laws without even knowing it, and if they follow you in a cruiser, then eventually can legally pull you over. What protects us is that most miniscule violations are not on the books. But if the government can collect 100% of all the information technology increasingly permits, they will begin to get 100% information. This will not harm you until the government decides to focus its laser power on YOU. There is little in this world as powerful as government, which can bring down the powerful, the wealthy, even the lawmakers. The ACLU has this one right - our government needs to be limited in the information it gathers on us.
Rather than focus on preventing government from spying on us and collecting information on us, which is futile, we need to focus on collecting information about our government and the actions of elected officials and making it transparent and easy to access for all citizens. The problem is that there is an inequality in the available information and that leads to too much government power. I seriously think our congressmen should be filmed 24/7 and all their motions made public, perhaps 1 year later to avoid the threat of assassination.
Currently hooked on AMP
I'm getting a little tired of seeing posts on retained information and person information and scanning etc.... Here's the deal, if you don't want your personal information stored by others get rid of the internet, your house, your car, all forms of non paper money, never show up anywhere there is a camera, never go to church ( God is storing your person data!!!!! ) and then crawl into a hole 50 Km under ground and stay there, and you better be naked because the government will use the tag on your jeans to find you.
The sooner people wake up and figure out that you don't have privacy anymore the better, the best question to ask in this case is what are you doing that you require such privacy?
If you do any activity which required your name be put to paper then your trackable okay, simple, easy and clear now grow up.
For those in the US we have a show on a cable channels A&E that has a show called Parking Wars. http://www.aetv.com/parking-wars/
They go up and down streets looking for people who are not following the law on how and where to park and also run checks on all the cars to see if any outstanding parking violation are on them. And how do they get the people to pay up? They put what is called a "Boot" on the car that makes it so they can not move the car from the spot.
Paul: Father... father, the sleeper has awakened! - Dune
why not an RFID signal that the police can activate when they have a good reason to suspect something?
(HaHa)^99
Ah haha *wipes tears*
Really?! what's left?
JUSTICE ALITO: Well, that seems to get to me to get to what's really
involved here, the issue of whether there is a technical trespass or
not is potentially a ground for deciding this particular case, but it
seems to me the heart of the problem that's presented by this case and
will be presented by other cases involving new technology is that in
the pre-computer, pre-Internet age much of the privacy -- I would say
most of the privacy -- that people enjoyed was not the result of legal
protections or constitutional protections; it was the result simply of
the difficulty of traveling around and gathering up information. But
with computers, it's now so simple to amass an enormous amount of
information about people that consists of things that could have been
observed on the streets, information that was made available to the
public. If this case is decided on the ground that there was a
technical trespass, I don't have much doubt that in the near future it
will be probable -- I think it's possible now in many instances -- for
law enforcement to monitor people's movements on -- on public streets
without committing a technical trespass.
So how do we deal with this? Do we just say, well, nothing is changed,
so that all the information that people expose to the public -- is, is
fair game? There is no -- there is no search or seizure when that is
-- when that is obtained, because there isn't a reasonable expectation
of privacy? But isn't there a real change in -- in this regard?
People do *NOT* have any natural right to anonymity when they are in any sort of public place. I do not say this because I think privacy or anonymity is unimportant, but it's the furthest thing from any sort of natural right when a person makes a deliberate choice to be in a place where there are other people.
The *ONLY* assurance that one might have of not being identified whenever they are in public is whatever sense of assurance that they possess that people who might have the ability to do so will simply be too indifferent about them to try.
Of course, one has no real control over what other people think about them, so this sense of assurance, while it may be adequate for some people, is ultimately ephemeral.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I'd think some enterprising vendor would collect license plat location data and sell it to insurance companies. They have an insatiable appetite for rate-rising data.
I've always wanted to know what establishments and homes that my local officials, politicians, lobbyists, and CEOs travel to and from...
Challenging the rights of our government to protect us. I guess they hate Freedom...
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Don't the cell phone companies already have this type of data (but at an individual level, not just tied to your car). What do they do with the data?
Did it occur to you that, once the cameras are in place to track license place, it might be just a simple software upgrade to add Face Recognition everywhere. There goes your privacy. Face recognition software and cameras are now routine.
It's really amazing watching all the idiots with "slave mentality" defending abuse of privacy and power.
Not only that, but they make excuses for it like "I have nothing to hide" and "there's nothing you can do about it so you might as well accept it". They defend abuse and make reasons why it's "ok". It's sickening.
It's more and more rare to see people stand up and fight against evil. It's just easier to be lazy, do nothing, and then watch a bunch of morons throw a ball around on TV while they become intoxicated with a six pack and pizza - without even a shred of worry for their children's future. It's just unbelievable.
The Supreme Court's "expectation of privacy" approach to Fourth Amendment law made sense back when surveillance of an individual cost money and time. Now that approach is leading inexorably to a total surveillance society. The technology to track all of us is cheap and getting cheaper. Storing 50 locations per day per American citizen for 10 years takes about half a petabyte of storage, which you can buy in just one rack for about $500,000. The few people who try to evade the surveillance system, by eschewing cell phones, cars, credit card, Facebook pages, etc., will stand out and be subjected to special tracking methods, heightened police scrutiny and possible prosecution. The ACLU is right to call attention to where all this is taking us.
The means of transportation that we used 150 years ago are still available to us today, but using them makes it so conspicuous that you are effectively tracked anyway.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
And the sad fact is that this is being discussed now but has been going on unfettered for a while:
http://www.parkingtoday.com/articledetails.php?id=788
If this is such an important tool (and I can see that part of the argument as well), why did the people who are responsible for instituting this into law enforcement not put in proper checks and balances?
If governments had shown good balance and restraint in favor of the people, the use of this would engender trust among all. Yet, the covert way in which this crept into many different venues of life implies that accountability to the public was never really high on the list for the legislators (who did not do their job in writing checks and balances) and much less for the elected officials who signed off on the payments for this system without asking the same questions*. Yet, writing checks and balances into Law, being open and transparent can be done today. Yet, where do we find anyone in a position (of power) who benefits from this stuff, to be honorable enough to bring balance here?
* I realize most of the public won't even understand what is happening here but the fact remains that a true servant of the public good would look out for them even when no one notices or cares. Good policy, open governance is good regardless of applaud.
They should scan and check for warrants, fines, BOLOs and vehicles involved in crimes.
All other license plate data should be permenantly deleted within 24 hours.
If you want to see these scanners in use then watch Jacked.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1280619/
They drive around in SUV's with reinforced bumpers with the scanners mounted around the SUV so any vehicle near them is automatically scanned.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
I don't mind the government knowing more about me than I do myself. But I do mind my employer, supermarket, Google, ISP etc collecting data on me.
See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVlOFOiCP7Q&feature=related Sarasota police have been using VeriPlate for years. I think VeriPlate may have changed it's name, but here's a link to one distributor of this technology: http://www.ndi-rs.com/NDI/NDI-ANPR-ALPR-Mobile-Systems/16/systems/ The potential for abuse is definite.
In theory, and perhaps in current practice too, this technology can be used to create dossiers on people's traveling habits. Of course, with a little creativity, it could be used for more than that. If you asked me, I'd tell you with confidence that this technology is intrusive and being abused. And you've really got to be careful what toys you give to the same thugs who support the world's largest prison population, as well as trade crime (or prison income) on the stock market. Yeah, crime is a very big industry in the US, and that is nothing to be proud of.
In Florida, we have no-fault insurance. To drive, you are legally compelled to have insurance. When you drop your insurance, your license is automatically suspended. I know drivers must be responsible by some means, but I find it interesting, this collusion/symbiosis between the mafia, or "insurance" companies and law-enforcement. You'd be very surprised to learn how many people are in jail for driving on suspended licenses, automatically suspended, sometimes for late payments. I cannot help but to find it odd that we must pay a corporation protection money for what we might do. It isn't like when we die, our remaining family receives a rebate for what never did, but payed for anyway. That's just one aspect of this crap-technology that is related and bothers the hell out of me. There's a lot more.
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
They put these things on bridges, so they can take a photograph of your car, your license, and probably your mug too.
They know who's going, and who's leaving. If two cars pass every 10 secs, then they will easily store over a half million
records in a month's time.
They tell residents this will good for everybody, because they will use it to catch the "bad guy" before they
break into somebody's home, but this is a lie. Cameras do not prevent crime. They don't have any real data to
backup their claims, but yet they still install them. They're not telling you the whole truth.
They might as well install a video camera on your driveway, because that is exactly what they're doing.
Invading your privacy for the sake of their pocket book.
>"In some cases, we know that the worst-case scenarioâ"vast databases with records of movements of massive numbers of peopleâ"is already happening. To avoid this fate "
Avoid this fate? Are they kidding? There is absolutely NO WAY to guarantee citizens this information is going to be maintained according to any rules, whatsoever. If the information is collected, it *WILL* be stored, it *WILL* be accessible by the FBI/CIA/DHS/whatever, regardless of what laws are in place.
Sorry to have to break this news. The only truly secure and non-abusable information is that which is not collected in the first place.
They might tell you this data is stored for one or two months, but this becomess meaningless when the data is shared.
They might think it's a good way to make some money, so they will sell it, or share it.
Millions of records will be shared.
Then, local spying becomes a global spying issue. They will be able to track your vehicle across the
country, from NY to California.
How can License Plate Recognition (LPR) be used as a tool to prevent and resolve crimes from occurring while protecting citizens from abuse? I have seen the technology first hand be used to capture stolen vehicles, arrest violent felons, arrest terrorists, and Amber alerts. The License Plate can be tracked to a GPS location and date of scan. Since this data is ONLY accessible to Law Enforcement, there is really no threat that it can be used to unlawfully track a vehicle. Since the data is ONLY accessible to Law Enforcement, there is very little chance an officer would track a random vehicle without a purpose.
Scans are only half the equation and are meaningless without a hot-list. A hot-list is a record of warrants, suspects, vehicles in a crime, stolen vehicles, stolen license plates, and/or traffic violations. A hot-list allows the MATCH that Law Enforcement cares about. This allows them to keep their eyes on the road while the cameras look for vehicles that SHOULD be pulled over. For most Law Enforcement Agencies, 90% only care about real-time hits against their plates of interest, but now Detectives, Homeland Security, FBI, and other investigative agencies are able to piece together a more complete picture of suspects using older data.
Most recently, LPR has been used to store historical data and this has some people concerned that they can be tracked. Again, since the data is ONLY accessible to Law Enforcement, there is really no threat that it can be used to unlawfully track a vehicle. The old data can be used to determine if a sex offender had been parked near an elementary school on a regular basis. The old data can be used to determine unknown addresses where a felon frequents. In reality, there really isn't enough of data to make it useful. We are talking about a 20% chance your vehicle has ever been scanned (much much less in rural areas), and we are talking about ALL the times it was on the road. All the times you have gone to the super market, mall, or sports games. The technology is definitely not capable of tracking a vehicle like GPS monitors. It is capable of giving rare tip about where a vehicle might have been at a specific time. It is up to Law Enforcement to determine if that rare tip is useful in saving lives and preventing crime.
As far as hot-lists for outstanding license fees... well, there are only 2 things you can't avoid: death & taxes. If you don't like the unfair tax policies, blame a politician.
Any technology implemented by government that might possibly be used by the government to control the populace, will be, until a more effective form of abuse is created.
Then everyone will be safe from disquieting questions.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Yet another reason to take up cycling.
I am sorry, that medical procedure will not be covered under your insurance because you have not been taking the medication (that made you sick/create a risk of liver failure or heart attack/the mail-provided medication was lost in delivery) prescribed by your physician.