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Vast Surveillance Network Powered By Repo Men
v3rgEz writes "Even as some police departments curtail their use of license plate scanning technology over privacy concerns, private companies have been amassing a much larger, almost completely unregulated database that pulls in billions of scans a year, marking the exact time and location of millions of vehicles across America. The database, which is often offered to law enforcement for free, is collected by repo and towing companies eager to tap easy revenue, while the database companies then resell that data, often for as little as $25 for a plate's complete recorded history."
The life of a repo man is always intense.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
what else is new
Well, in this case it's some capitalists taking advantage of a business opportunity to spy on you. What bothers me is I don't recall signing any sort of release on this, when someone wants to look where I've been driving my car.
Which is worse, the government spying on you or business, which then sells the info, perhaps to someone who could be interested in robbing you or kidnapping your child, and using this sort of information as a resource?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Takking a photo in public should be freakishly illegal in a "modern, developed country"?
I thought we got up in arms when the government stopped us from photographing public buildings, and you want to make it possible to sue private citizens taking photos in public? What sort of statist, authoritarian nightmare constitutes "modern" in your world?
Open sources scanner software that works with a cheap USB camera and license plate wiki - that stores every scanned tag with number and state data. How fast do you think it would take legislators to decide it was a bad idea and outlaw scanners? Probably a few seconds after one of their own gets asked some embarrassing questions. The best way to fight such privacy threats is to embrace and extend their use to those in power.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Well, in this case it's some capitalists taking advantage of a business opportunity to spy on you. What bothers me is I don't recall signing any sort of release on this, when someone wants to look where I've been driving my car.
You don't have to sign a release to be recorded in public as you have no expectation of privacy. Unless a law is passed making it illegal use public images to track an individual or vehicle there is nothing to stop this sort of thing.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
I don't think we need regulations that prohibit this kind of data collection by private companies or individuals (the government is a different story). Collecting data nonintrusively shouldn't be illegal, because such laws would have all sorts of nasty side effects.
Instead of restrictive regulations, we need legislation that empowers people to protect themselves from this kind of thing. For example, maybe the requirement to display a large identifying string of characters on vehicles should be rethought. We don't require people to wear identifying signs around their necks every time they venture out in the public. License plates just make this kind of data collection too easy.
If our society is unwilling to get rid of license plates entirely, perhaps we could go to electronic ones. Static plates could be replaced by electronic displays that automatically go blank when the car is parked.
Right now the playing field isn't level. Instead of leveling it by taking rights away, we should give people the ability to easily and legally protect themselves.
Or perhaps some out-of-the-box thinking would yield practical countermeasures that are already legal. Of course, then the challenge might be keeping those countermeasures from being outlawed.
Goddammit, this shit needs to stop NOW.
We need to establish the understanding that there is a significant distinction between OBSERVING and RECORDING.
Yes, it is reasonable to say that you shouldn't expect privacy in a public setting, but this has historically been in the context of observation, not recording. The ubiquity and accessibility of modern recording devices completely alters the dynamic. Observation forgets, relinquishes and carries with it an element of humanity. Recording is cold, factual and unforgiving. This can be useful for some things (court proceedings, for example), but not everything; probably not most things.
No, you shouldn't expect privacy from individuals or the press. Yes, should be able to expect privacy from government and businesses who make recordings to be used against you.
Context is everything.