It seems to be a new scandal brewing. Surprises me how long it took. I recall in 2009 in Clearwater Florida when a Sherrif car had a gun-type looking devices pointing all 4 sides of the car. I asked what it was and he told me when he drives this thing picks up license plates and raises two alerts (if any): 1) if the tag is expired, OR if the owner of the car has a DL suspended/etc. If #2 then the picture of driver pops up and he visually checks if gender/look matches... if not, then he ignores the alert.
> The bug also allowed the researchers to update the status of any digital CA plate to “STOLEN,” which could alert police and possibly send them after a car falsely labeled as the object of theft.
It's like the old James Bond gag where the license plate rotates. Like this guy did:
Not only do they have fake plates, they have stolen plates that match the cars they are in, so it's nearly impossible to determine the car being spotted does not match the car on the plates without actually stopping it.
For $20, a Digital Recognition Network (DRN) customer can look up any license plate in the United States. If there is a match, the program will show the last time one of the company's cameras captured the plate, including a photo and information about when and where the photo was taken. The company sells the data to businesses, such as auto lenders, insurance carriers, repossession agents, and private investigators, but it can also be accessed by law enforcement. With more than 9 billion license plate scans in its database, it's a vast tracking tool that holds a massive amount of power. Vice recently looked deeper into the company and detailed how it works.
Had never heard of these plates. At least the current models may well make the problem worse:
> "In addition to the flexibility of the display, the digital plates also sport a tracking device that will alert the police to the location of a stolen vehicle and allow for general vehicle tracking. While a lot of people can get behind the idea of never going to the DMV again, not a lot of people are thrilled about the whole “license plate as tracking device” angle"
Throwing more light on the controversial use of police license plate readers, a new report from the Center for Investigative Reporting reveals the development of a new California database under development with the help of Palantir, a Silicon Valley firm whose data analysis technology is in wide use by the US intelligence and defense communities. According to the report, the company is party to a $340,000 contract to build the new infrastructure. The project is being spearheaded by the Northern California Intelligence Research Center — an office set up after the 9/11 terror attacks to enable police and intelligence agencies to share data.
The new database will collate records coming in from 14 counties across the state, will be able to handle at least 100 million records, and will be accessible to both local and state law enforcement, according to the report. It also notes that license plate records will be held by the new database for two years, regardless of the data retention policies of local law enforcement agencies. The database's total size is unknown, as is the identity of the government organization that administers it. However, LA Weekly wrote last year that a precursor to the new California-wide database in use by Los Angeles police had logged more than 160 million data points.
Despite their undeniable effectiveness at identifying stolen vehicles ("100 times better than driving around looking for license plates" in the words of one San Leandro police officer), license plate scanners have come under sharp criticism from privacy groups like the EFF and ACLU, which sued the LAPD and County Sheriff’s Department in May for access to a week's worth of records from its license plate readers. Since the devices permit automated scans of some 14,000 plates during a single shift, privacy advocates argue that strict data retention policies need to be put in place to stop a useful law enforcement tool from turning into a comprehensive database of citizens’ movements. And while the Supreme Court ruled last year that warrantless GPS tracking violates the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable search, automated license plate readers don't face the same legal restriction.
It's at least a far cry from an _advertised_ national gun show surveillance program. The only time I've been able to confidently identify license plate recognition is on the tollway. I don't think all of the setups are as obvious.
Cops automatically scan plate info now. It's harder to get away with being unregistered in metropolitan areas. Source: was slow to switch out-of-State plates that were no longer registered, got stopped in the city.
I'm confused about the exact details here -- does he believe there is an auto plate tracker which shows the name the vehicle is registered to (him) which gets a false-positive on a secondary search for name? It would seem more reasonable to have a list of suspects/warrants, and then a list of their own vehicles, and just pop it up then. You'd also want to find cars the suspect was known to drive, since it's pretty common for a "criminal" to register his property in someone else's name to protect from seizure.
I think it would be more plausible that he was profiled for race/location/type of vehicle/etc., rather than his name, but maybe there are more specifics?
I mean, it seems like the real answer is "take 30 seconds to run all four plate numbers", and then ask the witnesses what color and type of car they saw.
I saw one on the road the other day that was basically that xkcd license plate, a mix of I and 1. I'm sure that even if they aren't already known to the local police, the license plate search system is smart enough to handle it.
It seems to be a new scandal brewing. Surprises me how long it took. I recall in 2009 in Clearwater Florida when a Sherrif car had a gun-type looking devices pointing all 4 sides of the car. I asked what it was and he told me when he drives this thing picks up license plates and raises two alerts (if any): 1) if the tag is expired, OR if the owner of the car has a DL suspended/etc. If #2 then the picture of driver pops up and he visually checks if gender/look matches... if not, then he ignores the alert.
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