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California Officials Admit To Using License Plate Readers To Monitor Welfare Recipients (gizmodo.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the picking-on-the-poor dept.

According to a report from the Sacramento Bee, officials in Sacramento County have been accessing license plate reader data to track welfare recipients suspected of fraud. The practice dates back to 2016. Gizmodo reports: Sacramento County Department of Human Assistance Director Ann Edwards confirmed to the paper that welfare fraud investigators working under the DHA have used the data for two years on a "case-by-case" basis. Edwards said the DHA pays about $5,000 annually for access to the database. Abbreviated LPR, license plate readers are essentially cameras that upload photographs to a searchable database of images of license plates. If a driver passed by an LPR four times throughout a city, an officer with access would know where and at what time of day. Anyone with access to that data could use it track where someone drove and when, provided they were scanned by the LPR.

It's not immediately clear how travel patterns might reveal welfare fraud. As noted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, welfare fraud is statistically speaking, extremely rare. In 2012, the DHA found only 500 cases of fraud among Sacramento's 193,000 recipients. Following an inquiry from the EFF, the DHA has instituted a privacy policy (one that didn't exist before their initial inquiry) requiring investigators to justify each request for LPR data. The Sacramento Bee reports the DHA accessed the data over a thousand times in two years.

24 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. welfare fraud rates by Jodka · · Score: 5, Insightful

    from the ./ summary:

    "welfare fraud is statistically speaking, extremely rare. In 2012, the DHA found only 500 cases of fraud among Sacramento's 193,000 recipients."

    To be precise, detecting welfare fraud is extremely rare.

     

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    1. Re:welfare fraud rates by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      from the ./ summary:

      "welfare fraud is statistically speaking, extremely rare. In 2012, the DHA found only 500 cases of fraud among Sacramento's 193,000 recipients."

      To be precise, detecting welfare fraud is extremely rare.

      'detecting and proving'

    2. Re:welfare fraud rates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      To be more precise, there are more people looking for welfare cheats than there are policing Wall Street.

      You can follow the money two ways, follow the pennies, or follow the millions/billions.

      But white guys stealing old ladies pensions is just good ol' American Capitalism.

      Good lord, but are our values f'd up or what.

    3. Re:welfare fraud rates by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2

      So part of the question is - does it make financial sense to spend a significant number of man-hours trying to uncover those non-obvious instances of welfare fraud?

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    4. Re:welfare fraud rates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      1000 requests for data over two year period in a program that has 500 cases of fraud annually? provided that they are, in fact, only "investigating" those for whom they have reasonable cause to suspect them of fraud... sounds like a reasonable use of resources and funding, provided that the travel data does provide evidence that can further their investigations (like travel to casinos, known drug dealers, proof of some sort of employment that's not being reported,living outside of the jurisdiction they're claiming to live in, etc)

    5. Re:welfare fraud rates by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Hahaha! The political right having ANY influence in California Government? Go ahead, pull the other one! This state has been run by the Democrats for well over 20 years - House AND Senate, and usually with supermajorities (or within 1 vote of such a thing). No, this has nothing to do with the "political right", unless you mean the folks living in Berkeley because they are on the "right" shore of the Bay when you're looking at a map...

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    6. Re:welfare fraud rates by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 5, Informative
      How about the actual article:

      Since June 2016, when the county started using ALPR data, investigators discovered fraud had occurred in about 13,000 of the 35,412 fraud referrals they investigated, or about 37 percent of the time, the DHA said.

      I think BeauHD is putting on his liberal bias glasses when he edited up the summary. DHA says 13,000 confirmed cases of fraud in just 2 years. A far cry from 500...

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    7. Re:welfare fraud rates by Jerrry · · Score: 2

      It's not the fraud rates that concern me, but the percentage of people on welfare in Sacramento county. 193,000 is 12% of the county's population. That means almost one out of every eight people is on welfare in the county.

      That seems high for a place where the unemployment rate is only 3.9%.

    8. Re:welfare fraud rates by SlaveToTheGrind · · Score: 5, Insightful

      does it make financial sense to spend a significant number of man-hours trying to uncover those non-obvious instances of welfare fraud?

      It's more than just dollars spent vs. dollars recovered for the cases you find -- you have to factor in the deterrent effect you get from noisily making examples of the ones you find and thus increasing the known risk of playing the system.

    9. Re:welfare fraud rates by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 2

      Note the definition of "unemployment" is NOT "he/she has no job".

      If you have stopped looking for a job, you are NOT "unemployed", according to the current definition of "unemployed".

      Which means it would be quite trivial to have 12% of the people on Welfare and only 4% unemployed....

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    10. Re:welfare fraud rates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      The downward curve of credibility as your sentence progressed was delightfully smooth.

    11. Re:welfare fraud rates by tuttle · · Score: 2

      This is what it looks like: https://www.app.com/story/news...

      Funny thing is the trials have yet to get through grand jury, and the State offered an Amnesty package to others for a period of time: https://www.app.com/story/news...

    12. Re: welfare fraud rates by andymadigan · · Score: 2

      Because we live in urban areas where panhandlers are a daily occurrence. A generous welfare state smooths out the most dire cases, and makes it easier to ignore the beggars. It also makes it less likely that a group of them will get together and kill you for the contents of your wallet.

      We'd rather pay the state to take care of the homeless than do it ourselves (or pay bible bashers to do it).

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    13. Re:welfare fraud rates by mishehu · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The plural of "anecdote" is not "data". Try again. Maybe you should try to understand the actual underlying reasons for the anecdotes that you claim to have observed instead of just sitting up on a judgmental high horse...

    14. Re:welfare fraud rates by rtb61 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You hang around with dogs and you get fleas, " I have met my fair share of welfare recipients, and none of them were honest", did you meet a lot because you shared one thing in common, starts with a 'H' and a lack there off.

      Want a better return on investigation from the top down works much better, and PS welfare cheats refer to people who work and claim welfare. Reality, an incompetent loser who is incapable of doing reliable work, well, it's better for us when they are on welfare because they make shit workers and generally commit all sorts of petty crimes because, yeah, they are incompetent incapable losers, it's their brains, they are fucked, sometimes because the parents did a lot of drugs, sometimes because their corrupt government allowed a lot of pollution into their environment and sometimes just shit genes.

      You though, could probably stand some taxation investigation, which is why this concerns you so much, so how much did you cheat, how much would the tax hounds get back, how much of your hidden untaxed wealth can they sniff out, ever heard of keeping a low profit, yeah, nahh.

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    15. Re:welfare fraud rates by ebvwfbw · · Score: 2

      from the ./ summary:

      "welfare fraud is statistically speaking, extremely rare. In 2012, the DHA found only 500 cases of fraud among Sacramento's 193,000 recipients."

      To be precise, detecting welfare fraud is extremely rare.

      'detecting and proving'

      Not really. I had access to data 20 years ago and it was very easy. Simple oracle sql calls on the right databases. Things like do they have a bank account? What are the activities there? What about their tax returns? Look at phone records. Some homes have 80+ different people with phones that call that house home. Yea, bullshit. Not a 800 square foot home. Every one of them was collecting money from the government. These are usually illegals. So it really bothers me when people say illegals don't cost us anything, they contribute. Some of them, maybe. The vast majority bleed us dry like leeches. This isn't that hard to do. They could probably contract that search to certain financial companies. No need for LPR data.

  2. Re:JFC... by jeff4747 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Little experiment for those at home: Look up the Kelly Blue Book value for a 5-year-old C-class Mercedes, and a 5-year-old Toyota Camry. If you don't want to look, you'll find out the Toyota costs more.

    You're doing well and driving a paid-off Mercedes. And then shit hits the fan. Selling the Mercedes is a bad idea because resale value on luxury cars is terrible. Drive it into the ground, because it will last quite a few more years without maintenance and you've already paid it off.

    Even though people like this poster will insist you must be committing welfare fraud because you are driving what was once an expensive car.

  3. Can be Used for Good... by BBF_BBF · · Score: 2

    I can see how LPR data can be used to correlate charges on a SNAP debit card with location of the registered receipient. However, IMHO it should not be used without a warrant, so should not be used for "fishing expeditions".

  4. Re:The wrong problem by Dorianny · · Score: 3

    Welfare is used as an umbrella term for all kinds of government assistance programs.Including things like SNAP benefits, Section 8 or public housing. Medicaid, TANF, SSI, etc. Go on pretending we are dumb and talking about some program that ended 20 years ago

  5. They had warrants right? by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

    right?

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  6. You've never been on welfare of any kind by rsilvergun · · Score: 2, Interesting

    have you? I've had family who, due to illness, have. It's damn near impossible to game the system for long. There's enormous scrutiny on everything you do in exchange for the pittance your given. Virtually every financial transaction you make is scrutinized. If we put half the effort into finding Wallstreet cheats we do the occasional welfare cheat we'd never have another market crash again.

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    1. Re:You've never been on welfare of any kind by markdavis · · Score: 3, Insightful

      >"It's damn near impossible to game the system for long."

      I don't know much about welfare fraud, but suspect it is pretty high in many ways; although the worst problems with it are designed right into it. But Social Security "disability" fraud is rampant and probably far more worthy of investigation. I know people that have been on it for many years who are perfectly able to work, some who even work under-the-table. Almost anyone who is denied just gets a lawyer and "presto", approved... complete with back payments.

      https://www.forbes.com/sites/r...
      http://www.reformssdinow.org/w...

  7. Re:JFC... by PPH · · Score: 2

    Park the car. Take the bus. I might not sell my car. But I'm going to cut back on driving and maybe switch to a pay-per-mile insurance program. One effect will be to make tracking me by license plate scanning practically useless.

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  8. Re:GP's point is even more valid then by edtice1559 · · Score: 2

    The anti-poor people narrative is working so well that the parent got modded down twice. Maybe we can adopt a similar philosophy here at / . and give more mod points to white men from wealthy suburbs.