Near my old workplace there was an incident where somebody tried to set a fire at night and the police got involved. The criminal got away that night, but I was impressed that they actually caught him a few days later. I got to thinking about how you could do this with today's technology when you're recording things all the time... "Give me the license plates of all the cars that arrived after 11 and left the area between 12:30am and 1:00am?" To say nothing of tracking people using cell phones. (Recall that last bit was discussed in the Snowden leaks...)
Carlsbad, CA to photograph every car entering city
71–80 of 85 posts
Re: Carlsbad, CA to photograph every car entering city
#72Honestly, why do we expect privacy on a public road? I could install small camera on my house, direct it at the road, and start recording. Run it through some image recognition, and share it online. Am I violating your privacy?
Maybe, but it's illegal for sure. The filming is, unless you have a good reason like "cars are being set on fire nearby, I'm watching my own"; and by facial recognition all the more if you have no damn good reason.
Maybe laws are different wherever you live but you didn't mention a jurisdiction.
Re: Carlsbad, CA to photograph every car entering city
#73> Four council members, however, said they’re confident the information can be kept secure Based on what? The contract appears to be with a company that provides safety equipment, not electronics/surveillance equipment. How exactly is Mallory Safety & Supply a trusted security provider? > and that the system will increase safety for residents and police officers. Based on what? > They also said it may deter criminals…
Based on bureaucratic overconfidence. The real problem with most american cities is that there isn't that much crime yet the politicians feel the need to fight non-existent unfightable crime by making our lives miserable. California could have lead the way in offering good solutions for homelessness, mental illness, drug war, school choice etc. but yet it pushes for more and more nazi styled policies.
> California could have lead the way
Careful. Carlsbad is beach city with a bunch of hicks who now think they are rich because they bought a house in what was the sticks 40 years ago and it's worth a million dollars now--as such they tend to be Republican jerks. This is the fate of a lot of the California beach cities.
And they'll think this is a great idea. Until their wife subpoenas the records for a nasty divorce case. At which point they will suddenly be screaming about privacy.
PS: The past tense of the verb "to lead" is "led".
Re: Carlsbad, CA to photograph every car entering city
#74Honestly, why do we expect privacy on a public road? I could install small camera on my house, direct it at the road, and start recording. Run it through some image recognition, and share it online. Am I violating your privacy?
Well, unlike the police in your scenario, you don't have the legal power to affect one's rights for one. And the 'sharing online' part could be considered some sort of legal infraction on privacy
Re: Carlsbad, CA to photograph every car entering city
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Citation needed. For the US this number is less than 50,000, where are other 950,000 car deaths occurring?
WHO: http://www.who.int/gho/road_safety/mortality/en/ The US is about 4.3% of the world population. Typically, other populous countries have less cars per capita, but also higher accident and fatality rates.
Looking at the data, most of those deaths come from India and China - countries that have fundamental infrastructure problems. Traffic mortality is a symptom of something much bigger.
Re: Carlsbad, CA to photograph every car entering city
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
I doubt it. Just looking at http://www.uscommunities.org/suppliers/safeware-mallory/ gives you a fairly good guess as to how Mallory might have been chosen.
Am I missing something? This is a company website that contains stock photos, sales jargon and boring "solutions". Why are they qualified to receive taxpayer money to surveil vehicles wholesale, let alone receive money at all?
>Why are they qualified to receive taxpayer money to surveil vehicles wholesale, let alone receive money at all?
I assume they were the lowest bidder on the contract, but I don't know how contracts are awarded in Carlsbad.
Edit: looks like they probably placed a bid from here: https://www.planetbids.com/portal/mobile/bidList.cfm?company...
Re: Carlsbad, CA to photograph every car entering city
#77At a later date, they'll sell that data.
Yep, like when the city gets into financial trouble and can't meet it's overstuffed pension promises. Don't worry, though. I'm sure it will just be "anonymized" data that won't be personally attachable to you and I'm sure that they will follow best security practices and there will never, ever be a hack or data breach.
Re: Carlsbad, CA to photograph every car entering city
#78Am I missing something here? A small California town seems unimpressive compared to other rollouts of this technology including the entire island of Manhattan, as well as [all?] toll roads.
[0] https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/documents-uncover-nypd...
[1] http://www.mta.info/news-governor-cuomo-bridges-and-tunnels-...
" At each crossing, and at structurally sensitive points on bridges and tunnels, advanced cameras and sensors will be installed to read license plates and test emerging facial recognition software and equipment. These technologies will be applied across airports and transit hubs – including the Penn-Farley Complex – to ultimately develop one system-wide plan."
Re: Carlsbad, CA to photograph every car entering city
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Based on bureaucratic overconfidence. The real problem with most american cities is that there isn't that much crime yet the politicians feel the need to fight non-existent unfightable crime by making our lives miserable. California could have lead the way in offering good solutions for homelessness, mental illness, drug war, school choice etc. but yet it pushes for more and more nazi styled policies.
> California could have lead the way Careful. Carlsbad is beach city with a bunch of hicks who now think they are rich because they bought a house in what was the sticks 40 years ago and it's worth a million dollars now--as such they tend to be Republican jerks. This is the fate of a lot of the California beach cities. And they'll think this is a great idea. Until their wife subpoenas the records for a nasty divorce…
[deleted]
Re: Carlsbad, CA to photograph every car entering city
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Also, Caltrans routinely scans Fastrak transponders silently in non-toll areas to gauge traffic flow." Wow really? Where exactly? The trackers are not that small and I doubt they are all over 280 or 101 otherwise I would have noticed them by now..
EzPass toll tags being read outside toll areas is very common through out the tri-state area. The project mahyarm mentioned below is called "Midtown in Motion" where the tags are used to control the traffic light timing dynamically throughout the day (with humans overseeing too). You can find the readers placed usually behind information signs that are mounted on gantries or just plain in the open on traffic lights:…
I've seen those in NYC and don't doubt it, I'm talking about the Bay Area though.