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Public Records Request Returns 4.6M License Plate Scans From Oakland PD
schwit1 points out a report from Ars Technica on how they used a public records request to acquire an entire License Plate Reader dataset from the Oakland Police Department. The dataset includes 4.6 million total reads from 1.1 million unique plates. They built a custom visualization tool to demonstrate how this data could be abused. "For instance, during a meeting with an Oakland city council member, Ars was able to accurately guess the block where the council member lives after less than a minute of research using his license plate data. Similarly, while "working" at an Oakland bar mere blocks from Oakland police headquarters, we ran a plate from a car parked in the bar's driveway through our tool. The plate had been read 48 times over two years in two small clusters: one near the bar and a much larger cluster 24 blocks north in a residential area—likely the driver's home." Though the Oakland PD has periodically deleted data to free up space — the 4.6 million records were strewn across 18 different Excel spreadsheets with hundreds of thousands of lines each — there is no formal retention limit.
Future data - If I decide you are someone who I do not like, I can simply follow you around and log locations. But if you suspect me, you can change your habits.
Past data - With access to this data, I can see where you've been. Last week, last month, last year
They probably meant CSVs.
My biggest fear of this technology is that people may be investigated for no reason other than that their car was seen in close proximity to where a crime was committed. Police and district attorneys have been found to fit the evidence to match an individual. This has lead to, at a minimum an extended "interview" at the police station, and at a maximum being put to death. Was your car parked at the entrance to an alley while you picked up a pizza at the same time somebody was raped in the alley? How much money do you have for an attorney?
This is a common, but flawed, response to many types of privacy invasion. The thing is, scale matters. The aggregation of lots of data that could otherwise only be had by exerting effort (following someone, staking out a home, etc.) reduces the level of effort required to infringe someone's privacy, and greatly increases the chances that someone's privacy will be infringed. This is why forcing cops to get warrants is considered a good part of the justice system, while the mass "perusal" of aggregated information is considered bad (for privacy).
The anti-abortion protestors already do this, they record license plates at abortion clinics and try to follow people. This would give them a big chunk of surveillance data to locate where they live, their job, the kids schools, their friends, their hangouts, their shopping mall,....
They've committed no crime, so why do the police keep innocent peoples data?
Why would you put the private data of innocent people in the hands of every random nutter, some of which have a uniform and a gun?
They can also figure out the address of anywhere you go regularly. That means your workplace, your friends' homes, the bar you hang out at, your mistresses' house, your drug dealer, etc.... any of which could open you up to blackmail or worse.
That last one might -- might -- be a valid thing for the cops to care about, but the rest aren't. Yet they still have the information, and that's a problem. Remember, even if you aren't a criminal, the cop looking through the records might be.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz