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Police Documents on License Plate Scanners Reveal Mass Tracking

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Re: Police Documents on License Plate Scanners Reveal Mass Tracking

#21
post #4
post #3

I always wondered on the legality of private license plate scanning. With just a bunch of people cooperating one could pretty much map out all the troop movement throughout the city.

Well the argument usually heard for the government doing it is "they've always been able to watch where you go in public" . I suspect that somehow would not fly if it were reversed. It's an interesting idea. Thanks to smartphones, the people have more cameras than their governments. The governments however have more targets.

Think of how quickly you'd end up in handcuffs if you created a website which tracked every NYPD vehicle in real-time.

The laws apply to us, not them.

Re: Police Documents on License Plate Scanners Reveal Mass Tracking

#22

The other problem is that state laws aren't keeping up with law enforcement technology. FOIA-similar laws in Minnesota meant that every ALPR-captured license plate was public information, which I requested to prove a point. I got back 2.1 million license plates (+ timestamp and coordinates) on a USB stick. Without strong policies and laws, this data is ripe for abuse -- domestic abuse victims and stalking where someo…

Yea, great so you complain about that and then they solve just that narrow case.

Doing so reduces some fringe harassment risks, but actually makes the power inversion worse since then only a privileged minority has access to the data.

In practice the stalking/harassment stuff isn't actually happening with any great frequency: The mentally ill people who would do this are generally not competent enough to go on a big data data mining exercise. Complaining about that just creates an excuse to remove access to the public to data they're paying to create while leaving access to it to authorities and commercial interests who might use it against them.

Re: Police Documents on License Plate Scanners Reveal Mass Tracking

#23
post #5

It is fascinating to observe the proliferation of technological misadventures federally funded in the past decade+ since 9/11. There needs to be a real legal movement to place limits on these activities. The argument is already lost in many other countries (e.g. U.K.), but we have a fundamental legal doctrine, enshrined in the 4th Amendment, that should apply. That requires real congressional and judicial action to r…

we have a fundamental legal doctrine, enshrined in the 4th Amendment

You need a constitutional amendment specifically for privacy and data retention. The 4th amendment does not do what you think it does.

Meanwhile, the argument is not lost in countries like the UK, but very much alive in terms of people invoking EU law via the charter of fundamental rights.

Re: Police Documents on License Plate Scanners Reveal Mass Tracking

#24
From user qz10 (who seems to have been hellbanned absed on IP):

It should be no surprise that this is happening. Give anyone unlimited surveillance power and it will always be abused.

I live in a western EU country and have a friend in law enforcement. Last year, he brought me to see our city's traffic surveillance 'control room'. Almost every street corner and traffic junction here has a pole-mounted police camera transmitting video data back to servers accessible from this room and elsewhere.

To summarize the demo: He was able to type a vehicle registration plate into this system, and instantly see every journey the car has taken plotted on a map, as well as the thousands of raw video clips of this vehicle that were used to generate the map.

Re: Police Documents on License Plate Scanners Reveal Mass Tracking

#25
I have a personal experience with the harm that ubiquitous recording of location data can bring, even when you don't do anything wrong.

When I was in college, I was called to the police station and accused of breaking a glass door in the dorms. I knew NOTHING about this. I told the police I knew nothing about the event, but they continued to press me. They asked me details about where I was that night (many weeks prior), and I had difficulty remembering where I had been. To make matters worse, I originally thought the day in question was another day, so I ended up giving information about my location that was incorrect. If the police decided they didn't like me, they could have easily pressed charges for lying, even though I thought I was telling the truth. Luckily, they eventually believed me and I was let go.

How is this related to license plate readers? Well, the only reason they suspected I was the person who broke the door was because my ID card had been swiped at around the same time the door was broken. Simply because I was present near the time and location of a crime committed weeks prior, I was accused of a crime and nearly accidentally perjured myself. (Don't worry; I know now to never talk to the police!)

If we start tracking everyone's movements, this sort of thing will happen more and more often. You will EVENTUALLY have driven by a place where a crime was committed. You may be called to account for your being nearby, even weeks or months later. When the police ask you why you were there, will you remember? Will your answers satisfy them? Will your general unease at being questioned make you appear suspicious? Will you fumble, and say things that contradict yourself, making you appear even more suspicious?

Re: Police Documents on License Plate Scanners Reveal Mass Tracking

#26

From user qz10 (who seems to have been hellbanned absed on IP): It should be no surprise that this is happening. Give anyone unlimited surveillance power and it will always be abused. I live in a western EU country and have a friend in law enforcement. Last year, he brought me to see our city's traffic surveillance 'control room'. Almost every street corner and traffic junction here has a pole-mounted police camera t…

I think as a practical matter, expecting police to stay stuck in the 20th century is futile. The public will never strongly oppose that kind of technology when they themselves are wearing google glass everywhere.

The fear of this sort of thing depends on being suspicious and wary of the police, and people aren't. My wife thinks I'm crazy when I rant about cops, but as a practical matter she has no reason to be skeptical (as a young white woman). As long as most voters are either white, old, or female (groups cops tend to avoid harassing) you won't see the necessary skepticism to oppose this sort of thing.

Heck, over the last 20 years people happily handed the police enormous amounts of power via drug laws. The white suburban moms in my school in the 1990's shrieking about "just say no!" had no reason to be skeptical.

Re: Police Documents on License Plate Scanners Reveal Mass Tracking

#27

http://www.aclu.org/files/FilesPDFs/ALPR/kansas/alprpra_lene... Page 364 mentions "PRISM".

PRISM is an acronym used all over the place, and may not be the NSA-specific program.

http://waxy.org/2013/06/these_arent_the_prisms_youre_looking...

Re: Police Documents on License Plate Scanners Reveal Mass Tracking

#28
post #3

I always wondered on the legality of private license plate scanning. With just a bunch of people cooperating one could pretty much map out all the troop movement throughout the city.

In somewhere like Russia where everyone owns a dashcam it could be very possible.

[deleted]

Re: Police Documents on License Plate Scanners Reveal Mass Tracking

#29
post #3

I always wondered on the legality of private license plate scanning. With just a bunch of people cooperating one could pretty much map out all the troop movement throughout the city.

In somewhere like Russia where everyone owns a dashcam it could be very possible.

The Russians are pretty clever, they probably have backdoors in the dashcams and have crowdsourced their surveillance at great savings.
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