Slashdot Mirror
It's Not Just the NSA: Police Are Tracking Your Car
New submitter blastboy writes "Every day in Britain, a vast system of cameras tracks cars on the road, feeding their movements into a database used by police. And because that data is networked, cops can use it to go back in time — or even predict your movements. But even though there are serious concerns about the technology, and it's regularly been abused by law enforcement, it has now been exported by the Brits and put in place by police departments around the world."
If there's no expectation of privacy on public roads, then why do people get freaked out if they notice someone following them?
For the same reason people don't worry that people can see them when they are out in public, but freak out when they notice someone staring at them. You are being singled out and focused on, and probably not for something good.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
But the police aren't tracking your car 24/7. That's not what the ANPR system is.
ANPR cameras tend to be at petrol stations (where they are mainly installed to catch drive offs), on major motorways (to catch insurance/tax dodgers and any cars flagged as "interest" - this includes criminal flags as well as stolen vehicles) and in some police patrol cars (for the same reasons).
The scaremonger site linked in the article is trying to paint this as some sort of abuse. The cameras are nowhere near as "all encompassing" as these click bait articles like to make out, nor are they overwhelmingly used for the nefarious purposes indicated. The bulk of ANPR flags are for tax, insurance and stolen cars.
They're certainly not able to track an individual vehicle 24/7. At best the police (after pouring through hours of footage) might be able to pin you down to a local area, or say "this car drove up the M1 last week".
It's not Enemy of the State or anything.