License plate reader searches should require a warrant • Hacker News Board

Re: License plate reader searches should require a warrant

#351

Post by judge2020 » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 12:30 AM UTC

kentm wrote: post #29

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why a police cruiser can sit in a public space (or even a private one) and write down licence plates and descriptions of passers-by with pen and paper, or record everything around them with dashcams and bodycams for later use, but when it comes to cameras on a pole this would require a warrant. Going back through police officers' notes or cruiser dash cam videos and tracking a car's movements by it…

> I don't understand why a police cruiser can sit in a public space (or even a private one) and write down licence plates and descriptions of passers-by with pen and paper, or record everything around them with dashcams and bodycams for later use, but when it comes to cameras on a pole this would require a warrant. Scale actually matters. Things that are generally OK at a small scale become problematic at larger scal…

Note that they already don't write down license plates. They use LPRs attached to their cars, and tend to be automatically running every plate immediately through the database, which tends to catch people without insurance or expired registration.

Is the line automation? Or 24/7 operation? (genuinely)

Re: License plate reader searches should require a warrant

#352

Post by malwrar » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 12:34 AM UTC

jameshart wrote: post #333

malwrar wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting perspective. As others have noted, I believe the brightline is less “general purpose computer…” and more “…that is remotely accessible & modifiable effectively anywhere in the world”. I worry not just about OEMs and cops, but also criminals, foreign intelligence agencies, etc. Honestly potentially anyone at this point, now that folks have figured out you can use LLMs to do analysis. This is a sound founda…

I think that’s a very different concern - your take is more ‘governments shouldn’t deploy these things because they are incompetent’ whereas the original concern seemed to be ‘governments shouldn’t deploy these things because they are malicious’. Neither philosophy seems to have a good limiting principle for what they mean governments should be allowed to do to efficiently enforce traffic law

Don’t get me wrong, governments putting these things up for one purpose and then using them for another (my read on your use of “malicious”) is a major concern I have.

It is broader than that though, and is the distinction I sought to capture with “anyone with access” in my original post. They are connected to the internet, and to a cloud no less! Anyone could be the NSA now, from anywhere in the world. I bet we’ll see these used to collect marketing data too.

Perhaps a limiting principle can be that we simply do not use ALPRs or other surveillance tech, or at least that we don’t connect them to the internet and require a warrant to access and use their data? Personally, I’d just prefer cops enforce traffic law the old fashioned way.

Re: License plate reader searches should require a warrant

#353

Post by evilDagmar » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 12:36 AM UTC

A judge would never sign off on a warrant for the kind of searches Flock facilitates. Similar opinions involving cell phones have been rejected by the courts multiple times. Folks desperately trying to workshop some line of reasoning by which everyone should apparently be okay with an Orwellian panopticon is pretty annoying.

Re: License plate reader searches should require a warrant

#354

Post by scyzoryk_xyz » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 1:00 AM UTC

ryeights wrote: post #347

vzaliva wrote: post #339

Imagine all licence plates being small screens and periodically showing numbers derived from a private key issued by the DMV. As they change, vehicles could not be tracked without knowing the private key, yet the DMV can verify the ownership because they know one. I am not a crypto expert, and the actual scheme may be a bit more sophisticated, but you’ve got the idea.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/10/us/flock-cameras-can-trac... “In recent years, as artificial intelligence has advanced, Flock has added the ability to search for cars based on their make, type, color, or unique details, such as bumper stickers or visible damage.” So TOTP license plates is not enough.

TOTP license plates would be totally rad to see imagined in a badass dystopian sci-fi film. I'm imagining something along the lines of Robocop or Judge Dredd.

IRL we will probably need more mature solutions - legislation, regulation etc. At this point we know the tech can't really be contained. It'll be all-seeing, all-knowing and super cheap. Just as the source/link describes it. So the only way is to have actual adults working in law enforcement.

Re: License plate reader searches should require a warrant

#355

Post by fluidcruft » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 2:10 AM UTC

estearum wrote: post #345

fluidcruft wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't have any expectation that the license plate on their car cannot be seen by law enforcement. People do not expect their phones to be feeding their locations to cops and they do not expect things hidden on them unknowingly to exist. But it really stretches believability that people have no idea that cops check license plate. Or that cops communicate with each other about license plates to coordinate search…

You should read SCOTUS opinions instead of forming beliefs based on media tropes, duh.

> you should go away until you agree with me so that I don't have to engage in discussion

I didn't ask you to reply to any of my comments.

Re: License plate reader searches should require a warrant

#356

Post by 01100011 » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 3:55 AM UTC

themaninthedark wrote: post #328

01100011 wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't need to. They know where you've been, where you're going, and what your intentions are. It's a far more intimate and effective surveillance tool. As a bonus, it's also a propaganda vehicle and an implement of mass psychological manipulation.

And you require a warrant to get access to that data... Supreme Court recently ruled that you need a warrant for even the geofence data lookup from 3rd party recently.

Oh yeah sure. Parallel construction doesn't exist. Government surveillance is completely benign as long as they can't bring a criminal case with the information, right? I mean, we have rules now, so it's all good.

Re: License plate reader searches should require a warrant

#357

Post by HDBaseT » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 3:57 AM UTC

stronglikedan wrote: post #302

henryaj wrote: post #296

Any idea why this is so much less acceptable to people in the US than in the UK? In the UK we've had ANPR for more than twenty years and AFAICT there's no mass controversy surrounding it. It catches people with no licence, no insurance, who are wanted in various serious crimes. I'm surprised at the difference in attitude. (I am aware that the UK has a less-than-stellar privacy track record... but nonetheless it's cur…

Because we value freedom above all else, thankfully.

That ship has sailed my friend. A man was arrested for clapping at a data center meeting. That is arguably worse "freedom of speech/freedom of expression" than most countries have. Speak ill of Israel and its over too.

[1] https://www.404media.co/clapping-is-a-first-amendment-right-...

Re: License plate reader searches should require a warrant

#358

Post by newsomix9xl » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 4:36 AM UTC

01100011 wrote: post #356

themaninthedark wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you require a warrant to get access to that data... Supreme Court recently ruled that you need a warrant for even the geofence data lookup from 3rd party recently.

Oh yeah sure. Parallel construction doesn't exist. Government surveillance is completely benign as long as they can't bring a criminal case with the information, right? I mean, we have rules now, so it's all good.

Parallel construction doesn't seem to me to be ordinary practice.

That's my impression anyway.

Re: License plate reader searches should require a warrant

#359

Post by gs17 » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 5:01 AM UTC

arjie wrote: post #331

gs17 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> warrant-free flags for ongoing issues Why couldn't they get a warrant if it's an ongoing issue? It should be really easy, and warrants like that wouldn't take a long time to get usually.

Just for my own epistemic hygiene, would you mind clarifying your familiarity with applying for and receiving a similar warrant and the duration you envision when you say "wouldn't take a long time"? Very reasonable not to, of course, but it helps me adjust my understanding of things. And yes, if a warrant is a 10 min process at p95 from call receipt to warrant acceptance then that certainly allows for things like "t…

With electronic warrant systems and on-call judges, it can be 15 minutes or less, but that's typically for the simplest cases (e.g. DUI blood draw). However, given how non-seriously they take things currently I have little reason to believe "let me search Flock for this car reported stolen for the next week" wouldn't be a rubber stamp.

Re: License plate reader searches should require a warrant

#360

Post by LoganDark » Thu, Aug 13, 2026, 5:46 AM UTC

phil21 wrote: post #300

malwrar wrote: post #2

It frustrates me when people call them license plate readers. I guess you need to call them something, but they are general-purpose internet connected cameras. They will do whatever their firmware tells them to do, and could be reprogrammed at any time by anyone with access. No one expected doorbell cameras to join a mass surveillance network, but later the manufacturers added that feature. Why do we treat these came…

> No one expected doorbell cameras to join a mass surveillance network, but later the manufacturers added that feature. Plenty of people did? That was obviously one of the end goals for cloud connected devices pushing recordings to a remote side for processing and storage. Especially when stuff like facial recognition was implemented server side. I would be highly surprised if this was not pitched in the first intern…

> Plenty of people did? That was obviously one of the end goals for cloud connected devices pushing recordings to a remote side for processing and storage. Especially when stuff like facial recognition was implemented server side.

There is a huge difference between storing and processing recordings for a customer's own use, and aggregating them from multiple sources for organized mass surveillance. With that said, most corporations do not have the principles to resist the latter.