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Show HN: Automated license plate reader coverage in the USA

alpranalysis.com

21–30 of 152 posts

Re: Show HN: Automated license plate reader coverage in the USA

#21
post #12

I've thought about this a lot as I see more and more reckless driving in the areas I live in. Surveillance is generally a net negative, but it's also bad when you see people speeding around schools, rolling through stop signs, and running red lights. We seem to have a worst of all situations where traffic is getting increasingly difficult to enforce, driving is getting more dangerous year by year, and we're terrified…

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Re: Show HN: Automated license plate reader coverage in the USA

#22

The county lists are wrong, at least they are for my state of New Jersey. We have 21 counties, not 27. Is it picking up the bordering counties that might have overlapping contracts or something?

It pulls counties from OSM administrative boundaries of level 6, which according to the OSM wiki, is "State counties and county equivalents, Territorial municipalities" ( https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag%3aboundary=administr... ). It does lead to some weird oddities, like counties with under 10 homes... I'd rather not manually correct it, since I want to rely on pure OSM data. (Unless you mean there is an actu…

There are also not 53 states.

Re: Show HN: Automated license plate reader coverage in the USA

#23

100% coverage seems like an inevitability in a country where filming in public is a constitutionally protected right and networked ALPR capability is possible (if not regularly offered yet) in commodity doorbell cameras.

I'm a private citizen. On my house we have an ALPR Axis camera pointing down the street (in addition to Axis cameras around the whole perimiter.) And when the police ask, we almost always provide them with data. I feel perfectly justified doing this, and we've helped solved several crimes.

Most people would do the same in your situation, we should expect citizens to want to help victims of crime, especially crimes against the person.

However I think there’s a significant difference between a single household and a centralised network of cameras across dozens of states.

For me the core issue of this is private enterprise holding gigantic amounts of PII, and the forms that is taking.

Re: Show HN: Automated license plate reader coverage in the USA

#25
post #12

I've thought about this a lot as I see more and more reckless driving in the areas I live in. Surveillance is generally a net negative, but it's also bad when you see people speeding around schools, rolling through stop signs, and running red lights. We seem to have a worst of all situations where traffic is getting increasingly difficult to enforce, driving is getting more dangerous year by year, and we're terrified…

I agree. It's frustrating that we have ended up in a reality where vehicle movement is heavily tracked, but we're not using that technology to do the most obvious and productive thing.

My city spent a few million dollars installing Flock cameras to all its municipal parking garages in a matter of months, but has been hemming and hawing over adding a few speed cameras for years, despite petitioning the state for an allowance do so back in 2023.

Traffic enforcement cameras don't even have to become the networked surveillance system that Flock offers. Most are still cameras triggered by radar rather than perpetually recording all drivers.

Re: Show HN: Automated license plate reader coverage in the USA

#26

Number plates are just one of the privacy tracking technologies. Any modern connected car infotainment system will report and have that data sold or anything that has Bluetooth can be tracked.

Recent car tracking discussion here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46097624

Re: Show HN: Automated license plate reader coverage in the USA

#27

100% coverage seems like an inevitability in a country where filming in public is a constitutionally protected right and networked ALPR capability is possible (if not regularly offered yet) in commodity doorbell cameras.

I'm a private citizen. On my house we have an ALPR Axis camera pointing down the street (in addition to Axis cameras around the whole perimiter.) And when the police ask, we almost always provide them with data. I feel perfectly justified doing this, and we've helped solved several crimes.

Hi enemy! :)

Re: Show HN: Automated license plate reader coverage in the USA

#28

The county lists are wrong, at least they are for my state of New Jersey. We have 21 counties, not 27. Is it picking up the bordering counties that might have overlapping contracts or something?

yeah we have 8 counties in CT, not 14. The names are also wrong.

Re: Show HN: Automated license plate reader coverage in the USA

#29
post #6

100% coverage seems like an inevitability in a country where filming in public is a constitutionally protected right and networked ALPR capability is possible (if not regularly offered yet) in commodity doorbell cameras.

> 100% coverage seems like an inevitability in a country where filming in public is a constitutionally protected right a It really doesn't have to be though. The rights of individuals to record in public doesn't have to translate to the right of corporations (flock, amazon, etc.) to do it without restriction. Time, place, and manner restrictions on our rights already exist, it just needs to be found that this manner…

If a home or business owner sets up Ring cameras, is it fair to say Amazon is recording in public? That feels like blaming Canon for the behavior of a paparazzi, but perhaps there are reasons those aren't equivalent I'm not aware of.

Re: Show HN: Automated license plate reader coverage in the USA

#30

Number plates are just one of the privacy tracking technologies. Any modern connected car infotainment system will report and have that data sold or anything that has Bluetooth can be tracked.

Including the camera and microphone in our pocket that pings every cell tower every time we move.
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