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Have I been Flocked? – Check if your license plate is being watched

haveibeenflocked.com

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Re: Have I been Flocked? – Check if your license plate is being watched

#241

Post by beAbU »

dieselgate wrote: post #196

Cool website, gave it a go. I am not a general advocate of license plate tracking but believe it’s a double edge sword. A former vehicle was stolen and recovered twice - likely due to tracking technology.

Cars can have tracking devices installed that remain dormant until remotely activated by the owner in case of theft.

This is how Netstar and Tracker does it in South Africa. To massive success. So much so that a car without one of these installed is basically uninsurable.

There is no need for external 3rd party tracking.

Re: Have I been Flocked? – Check if your license plate is being watched

#242

Post by cykros »

9rx wrote: post #179
dehrmann wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that the state with license plates that say "live free or die?" Unless, of course, you have a moral objection to that statement, cf. Wooley v. Maynard.

Free as in beer.

They're not that free about beer. Though, more free about beer than liquor. That's only allowed to be sold in state run liquor stores. It was a real head scratcher when I first encountered it.

Re: Have I been Flocked? – Check if your license plate is being watched

#243

Post by phyzome »

chzblck wrote: post #177
JimmyBiscuit wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh no youre one druggie friend (that you didnt know about having a drug addiction) that visits you sometimes got caught by the cops. Oh no they think youre their drug dealer since his license plate got recognized in your driveway a few times. Oh no they are kicking your door in with a search warrant and shoot your dog.

Don't need Flock to have that happen - https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-hears-case-fam...

Cool, so now there are multiple ways to have it happen.

That sounds worse.

Re: Have I been Flocked? – Check if your license plate is being watched

#244

Post by hibf »

tptacek wrote: post #194
hibf wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right that the dataset is incomplete, but it contains searches done by police, not plates read by Flock. The search logs are public record even when alpr data is not; quite a few come from IL.

I have no doubt that local agencies are screwing up the law, which is very new, but in Illinois "ALPR information" means information gathered by an ALPR or created from the analysis of data generated by an ALPR (everything after the quotation marks is a straight excerpt of the statute), and is confidential. Do not get me started on small public bodies screwing up FOIA.

I'll assume you're correctly citing the statute — someone entering a sequence of characters in a "Search" field doesn't mean that the search term was "gathered by" or "created from the analysis of" ALPR data.

Re: Have I been Flocked? – Check if your license plate is being watched

#245

Post by hibf »

jeroenhd wrote: post #188
hibf wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You assume those aren't logged and accessible by the government. They are.

Of course they are, that's how they track memberships, payment history, and that kind of stuff. Can't say I really care about a paid parking garage keeping a customer registry. I trust the government a lot more than some random third party company ("flock"), though.

That seems contradictory. You don't care about a parking garage operator, but at the same time distrust "some random third party company"?

Re: Have I been Flocked? – Check if your license plate is being watched

#246

Post by hibf »

slicktux wrote: post #192

I’m curious; what database are they using? Or does Flock allow queries to their database?

Whenever anyone does a search in Flock's database, Flock sends the metadata to the related customers.

I.e., if someone does a statewide lookup in Nebraska, all Nebraska-based Flock customers receive the search metadata. Ostensibly, to be able to track if "their" ALPR data has been queried. Those audit logs are public record.

This is also how IL discovered out-of-state agencies were using data from Illinois for immigration enforcement (after FOIA by a citizen, of course; apparently none of the IL law enforcement agencies audited their data for unlawful activity).

Re: Have I been Flocked? – Check if your license plate is being watched

#247

Post by iso1631 »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #167
iso1631 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People install ring cameras which record me walking past. Those cameras then push the data to private companies for processing, and are made available to police on a simple request. ANPR has been a thing for 30 years. Is America just slow on the uptake? Even then it looks like they've been in use for a long time there.

>and are made available to police on a simple request. That's a "santa claus for adults" rumor. Ring only complies with requests that they are legally obligated to. Otherwise users need to voluntarily share the footage, which more often than not they do.

I guess depends on your neighbours

https://www.pcworld.com/article/2945470/ring-lets-police-ask...

Re: Have I been Flocked? – Check if your license plate is being watched

#248

Post by [deleted] »

nxm wrote: post #190
JohnFen wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many states, car registration data is public information. If you have a license plate number, you can easily look up who the car is registered to, where they live, etc. License plate numbers are PII.

This is simply not true.

[deleted]

Re: Have I been Flocked? – Check if your license plate is being watched

#249

Post by JohnFen »

nxm wrote: post #190
JohnFen wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many states, car registration data is public information. If you have a license plate number, you can easily look up who the car is registered to, where they live, etc. License plate numbers are PII.

This is simply not true.

Thank you for the correction. This was absolutely true in my state, but your reply made me double-check the law. It has changed.

Now, the unredacted registration information is more limited. If you aren't in the (fairly broad) category of people who are entitled to the unredacted information, you can still get the records but the items legally defined as PII will be redacted.

That still makes the license plate PII, though.

Re: Have I been Flocked? – Check if your license plate is being watched

#250

Post by iso1631 »

airstrike wrote: post #163
iso1631 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ANPR cameras which the rest of the world (and apparently America) have had for decades have recently become big news in America, I believe because they're now being used for immigration purposes? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number-plate_recogni... I'm not sure why these are so bad but generally everyone loves things like Ring cameras which do the same thing but with people rather than vehicles. I suspect…

Unless I'm missing something, Ring cameras film people at my doorstep and are for my personal use, so dont know how they're similar at all even if you don't trust Amazon

Ring cameras at your doorstep film me walking past the street. Just like your dashcam on your car films me in my car, or a number plate reader on my car films your car
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