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What Happens When Police License Plate Readers Make Mistakes? (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader writes:
The Verge reports that San Francisco Bay Area police "pulled over a California privacy advocate and held him at gunpoint after a database error caused a license plate reader to flag a car as stolen, a lawsuit alleges." Brian Hofer, the chairman of Oakland's Privacy Advisory Commission, was handcuffed and surrounded by multiple police cars, and says a police deputy injured his brother by throwing him to the ground. They were finally released -- 40 minutes later. But ironically, Hofer has been a staunch critic of license plate readers, "which he points out have led to wrongful detentions, invasions of privacy and potentially costly lawsuits." (California bus driver Denise Green was detained at gunpoint when her own car was incorrectly identified as stolen -- leading to a lawsuit which she eventually settled for nearly $500,000.) And at least one thief simply swapped license plates with an innocent driver.
The executive director of Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, a state government program, acknowledged that the accuracy rate of the license plate readers is about 90 percent, yet "added that in some cases, the technology has actually exonerated people, or given potential suspects alibis. But there is no way for the public to know just how effective the license plate reader technology is in capturing criminals" -- apparently because police departments aren't capturing that data. Only one of the region's police departments, in Piedmont, California, reported its "efficacy metrics" to the agency -- with 7,500 "hits" which over 11 months led to 28 arrests (and the recovery of 39 cars) after reading 21.3 million license plates. The license plate readers cost $20,000 per patrol car.
In Hofer's case, he was driving a rental car which had previously been reported as stolen but then later recovered -- though for some reason the police or rental car agency failed to update their database. But he criticizes the fact that "somebody could pull a gun on your because of an alert that a computer system gave them."
"They're just pulling guns and going cowboy on us," Hofer says. "It's a pretty terrifying position to be in....
"This is happening more frequently than it should be. They're not ensuring the accuracy of their data and people's lives are literally at risk."
The executive director of Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, a state government program, acknowledged that the accuracy rate of the license plate readers is about 90 percent, yet "added that in some cases, the technology has actually exonerated people, or given potential suspects alibis. But there is no way for the public to know just how effective the license plate reader technology is in capturing criminals" -- apparently because police departments aren't capturing that data. Only one of the region's police departments, in Piedmont, California, reported its "efficacy metrics" to the agency -- with 7,500 "hits" which over 11 months led to 28 arrests (and the recovery of 39 cars) after reading 21.3 million license plates. The license plate readers cost $20,000 per patrol car.
In Hofer's case, he was driving a rental car which had previously been reported as stolen but then later recovered -- though for some reason the police or rental car agency failed to update their database. But he criticizes the fact that "somebody could pull a gun on your because of an alert that a computer system gave them."
"They're just pulling guns and going cowboy on us," Hofer says. "It's a pretty terrifying position to be in....
"This is happening more frequently than it should be. They're not ensuring the accuracy of their data and people's lives are literally at risk."
Rather than going in guns blazing and injuring people with excessive force, why not just pull the car over and talk to the people?
If they are going to be violent or belligerent it would be quite obvious.
The one time police pulled me over because I was driving the same kind of car as someone they were looking for, they just walked up, told me to keep my hands visible (this is sensible) and talked to me, calmly asked for my ID, ran it and said "you're free to go" once they realized I wasn't the person. No guns out, no "GET OUT OF THE CAR!!", no being wrestled to the ground.
Police have gotten way too gung-ho lately, it's time to dial that back a few dozen pegs.
But ironically, Hofer has been a staunch critic of license plate readers
That's just wisdom, bearing itself out. Irony would be previous support/praise of plate readers on his part.
You can argue about the plate technology, but the obvious big issue here is that the police help unarmed suspects at gunpoint. We have a severe police hiring, training, and discipline problem.
This is pretty much exactly the OPPOSITE of ironic.
He was already a critic of these devices - and now he has been provided with additional supporting evidence as to why they are bad.
It would’ve been ironic (in the colloquial sense) had he previously been a gung-ho supporter of police’s use of license plate scanners.
#DeleteChrome
Actually, it went all the way to the Supreme Court that police in USA's job is not to protect the people. It's to prosecute crime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_of_Castle_Rock_v._Gonzales/
That's still no excuse to injure an occupant of the vehicle by pulling them out of the car and slamming them to the ground. Surely by that point it would be apparent if an occupant of the vehicle intended to shoot their way out of the situation. That and if you have them physically under control enough to slam them down, they already can't go for a gun, the actual slamming isn't necessary.
OTOH, pulling a gun on someone who knows they've done nothing to call for that is a GREAT way to make them dangerous by putting them in fear for their life.
Add to that the fact that the scanner is only 80% accurate in the first place and even if it reads correctly, the database may be wrong (as it was in this case) and you have a significant chance that the people you're interacting with are completely innocent.
Yes, cops are professionals, terrorists are just volunteers.
Blank until
the headline doesn't fit the story, there was nothing wrong with the police license plate reader and it didn't make a mistake, it worked perfectly. The mistake was that somebody forgot to update the database. None of the cases in the story support the notion the reader is at fault (so reading the actual licenseplate wrong), the problem lies with the database itself or criminals using duplicate licenseplates (well nobody can do anything about that until there is a way to make a licenseplate really unique so it can't be copied). An officer can't see if the person driving the vehicle is a person who stole the car or not, and having dealt with a lot of criminals who stole cars and didn't go quietly when stopped, you can ofcourse understand why cops react this way when stopping a carthief. Anybody can claim he/she is innocent.
In this case the people who forgot to inform the car was found should get a fine for not reporting it properly.
The article just underlines the fact the system actually works..