Surveillance Cameras To Scan License Plates

[sauerkraut]

Goes back to the slipery slope, cameras started with those red light cameras back in the 1990's then they went to "speed" cameras to nab speeders, now they start with thease license plate cameras. Oh well like they say if you have nothing to hide...

[heironymouspasparagus]

We're already at the bottom of the slippery slope....just in case anyone isn't already freaked out enough yet - you are gonna love what has been going on in recent years...

Look at them in this order...but be sure you watch both!!  The future has been here for a while, now.

Waiting to see what Apple does in this market space - do you think they have been planning on this for some time now?  Wouldn't surprise me...they started with the iPod so they would work their way up to iRobot!!  I bet Asimov's estate would be glad to license that to them!  ( I wonder how the vacuum cleaner company gets away with it?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww

http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1318959&itc=eetimes_node_189&elq=0b583c2d3fa441f89455479df794e907&elqCampaignId=370

There is also a Darpa horse.

[patric]

cameras started with those red light cameras back in the 1990's then they went to "speed" cameras to nab speeders, now they start with these license plate cameras.

Clue:  Red light cameras are for revenue.

PHILADELPHIA — Two men face third-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and other charges in a crash that killed a mother and three young sons crossing a 12-lane highway plagued by pedestrian deaths, police said.

Samara Banks, 28, and her three youngest sons were killed as they crossed Roosevelt Boulevard at a point with grassy medians dividing the traffic lanes, but no crosswalk or traffic light.

Roosevelt Boulevard had the nation's 2nd and 3rd most dangerous intersections in a 2001 insurance company study, which tallied 618 crashes at those two intersections alone in a two-year period.

Last August, 43-year-old Michael Romano died after pushing his 5-year-old son out of danger just before he was struck by a hit-and-run driver at 11 p.m. His death came just days after another man was killed in a 2 a.m. hit and run nearby.

And 36-year-old pedestrian Brenda Rodriguez was struck and killed in June 2009 after she and a friend picked up Chinese food. Witnesses said she was struck as two drivers were racing each other; both of them fled.

The deaths continued even after the city started installing red-light cameras to try to calm traffic.

[sauerkraut]

We're already at the bottom of the slippery slope....just in case anyone isn't already freaked out enough yet - you are gonna love what has been going on in recent years...

Look at them in this order...but be sure you watch both!!  The future has been here for a while, now.

Waiting to see what Apple does in this market space - do you think they have been planning on this for some time now?  Wouldn't surprise me...they started with the iPod so they would work their way up to iRobot!!  I bet Asimov's estate would be glad to license that to them!  ( I wonder how the vacuum cleaner company gets away with it?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww

http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1318959&itc=eetimes_node_189&elq=0b583c2d3fa441f89455479df794e907&elqCampaignId=370

There is also a Darpa horse.

WoW that is something, who knows what other kind of robots they have that we don't know about. IMO There is no question red light/speed cameras are for money, "safety" is used as a excuse to use them plus the camera companies get a cut of the money. It's also strange that you can't fight a camera ticket in court, you don't have the right to face your accuser when it's a camera. In the past people tried to fight camera tickets in court but it does not work out. Each state is different though.

[heironymouspasparagus]

There is also a Darpa horse.  Pretty cool stuff.

[patric]

And the federal government is giving grants to pay for these cameras so long as they share the information back with DHS (and then NSA).......

http://www.fox23.com/news/local/story/ACLU-upset-about-license-tag-scanners/uN2H0mb-LEydPz20VQosUQ.cspx

[sauerkraut]

Regular drivers can get dash cameras in cars now, that's not a bad idea for accidents, the court can see who was at fault. In Russia most drivers have car dash cameras. The dash cameras keep recording as long as your driving.

[patric]

Regular drivers can get dash cameras in cars now, that's not a bad idea for accidents, the court can see who was at fault. In Russia most drivers have car dash cameras. The dash cameras keep recording as long as your driving.

Consumer dash cameras usually dont have Optical Character Recognition that catalog the license plates of every vehicle they encounter, nor do real-time lookups on a variety of databases possibly ranging from NCIC to "Hostile Tulsa World Reporters" or "cars found outside mosques."

[sauerkraut]

Consumer dash cameras usually dont have Optical Character Recognition that catalog the license plates of every vehicle they encounter, nor do real-time lookups on a variety of databases possibly ranging from NCIC to "Hostile Tulsa World Reporters" or "cars found outside mosques."

No but they can be great if someone fails to yeild and  turns in front of you, or your get hit by a hit & run driver, a video record of it is hard to beat.

[sauerkraut]

~Or as our Hoss would say "WoW" Just "WoW"!

[patric]

License plate data not just for cops: Private companies are tracking your car
http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/19/19548772-license-plate-data-not-just-for-cops-private-companies-are-tracking-your-car

License plate recognition technology developed for law enforcement and embraced by the auto repossession industry is being opened to wider use through a Florida company that lets its clients track the travels of millions of private vehicles – adding to privacy advocates' concerns that such data could be used improperly.

TLO, an investigative technology company in Boca Raton, Fla., began offering the search service to its private industry clients in late June, saying it taps into a database of more than 1 billion records collected by automatic license plate readers.

A report earlier this week by the ACLU found that U.S. law enforcement agencies are scooping up droves of data using license plate readers, creating massive databases where more than 99 percent of the entries represent innocent people.

But private industry also has put the technology to work, most prominently in recovering vehicles from deadbeat borrowers. As the new TLO service demonstrates, private use of LPR data for other purposes is expanding rapidly.

It's unclear who runs the database that TLO taps into, but the two leading companies in the field say that each month their databases collect tens of millions of pieces of geo-located information from thousands of license plate readers, mounted on tow trucks, mall security vehicles, police cars, at the entrances to store parking lots, on toll booths or along city streets and highways.

The data can include the location of the vehicle, the date and time it was spotted, and an image. Sometimes, drivers and passengers appear in the images.

"The prospect of a private company making such data public to all comers is scary," said Catherine Crump, an attorney with the ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. "This kind of information is particularly what stalkers would love to get their hands on."

Crump, who wrote the ACLU report but said she had not been aware of TLO's service, worried about privacy concerns with other possible uses, such as corporations tracking where their employees go after work, politicians scouting rivals or people keeping tabs on babysitters' travels.



An image taken by a license plate reader on a San Leandro, Calif., police car shows Mike Katz-Lacabe and his daughters getting out of their Toyota Prius in their driveway. The image is one of 112 that Katz-Lacabe received in a 2010 public records request for license plate data on his vehicles collected by police.

[patric]

Homeland Security is taking bids for private companies to amass permanent, nationwide databases of car tag "captures" to catalog the movements of American motorists:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/homeland-security-is-seeking-a-national-license-plate-tracking-system/2014/02/18/56474ae8-9816-11e3-9616-d367fa6ea99b_story.html


"Ultimately, you're creating a national database of location information," said Jennifer Lynch, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "When all that data is compiled and aggregated, you can track somebody as they're going through their life."

ICE issued a notice last week seeking bids from companies to compile the database from a variety of sources, including law ­enforcement agencies and car-repossession services.  The agency said the length of time the data is retained would be up to the winning vendor. Vigilant Solutions, for instance, one of the leading providers of tag-reader data, keeps its records indefinitely.

Vigilant's National Vehicle Location Service (NLVS), which holds more than 1.8 billion records, is offered to law enforcement agencies across the country.

The ACLU said it has no objection to law enforcement officials checking license plates to see whether they're associated with a stolen car or a felon evading arrest. But the government's access to vast amounts of data on ordinary, law-abiding citizens raises concerns about potential abuse, advocates said. "This is yet another example of the government's appetite for tools of mass surveillance," said Catherine Crump, staff attorney for the ACLU, which issued a report last year that criticized the growing use of the devices without adequate privacy protections.

About 20 states have passed or proposed legislation that would restrict the use of such readers or the storage of the data. Utah has a law prohibiting commercial companies from using automated high-speed cameras to photograph license plates.



"No disassemble!"  
The smashability test.  Apparently you have to dress as a stereotype for the right effect.

[patric]

U.S. Agency Told to Cancel License Plate Database Solicitation

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security demanded the cancellation of a plan to access or buy commercial databases for tracking license plates nationwide after criticism from privacy advocates.

"The solicitation, which was posted without the awareness of ICE leadership, has been canceled," Gillian Christensen, a deputy press secretary at the agency, said in an e-mail. "While we continue to support a range of technologies to help meet our law enforcement mission, this solicitation will be reviewed to ensure the path forward appropriately meets our operational needs."

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-02-19/u-dot-s-dot-agency-told-to-cancel-license-plate-database-solicitation



Oh, mass-surveillance technology in the hands of rogue government officials.  I feel so much safer.

[Gaspar]

. . .and today there is this.
http://www.fastcompany.com/3026690/internet-of-things/cisco-gains-traction-in-the-connected-road-race
Some people may find the AGT-Cisco product a bit creepy--after all, it's a traffic management system that reads license plate numbers and integrates social media. Nevertheless, it's part of a much larger trend in which city, state, and federal agencies use sensors to monitor the smallest aspects of everyday urban life.

[patric]

TULSA, Okla. - The city of Tulsa is considering investing in cameras that scan license plates in order to combat unpaid parking tickets.
http://www.fox23.com/news/local/story/Tulsa-exploring-new-ways-to-fight-unpaid-parking/9Jm2wjdFtU2uHB8jphnTfA.cspx


It's fighting parking offenses, what could go wrong?



Police lieutenant pleads guilty to extortion after looking up the plates of vehicles near a gay bar and blackmailing the vehicle owners.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10000872396390443995604578004723603576296
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/library/dc/dcpolice/stories/stowe25.htm


Mass Surveillance of All Car Trips Is Nearly Upon Us: "Drive somewhere in 2014, and 10 years from now a bureaucrat could look up where you went on a given Tuesday"
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/02/mass-surveillance-of-all-car-trips-is-nearly-upon-us/283922/


VA bill to include "vehicle license plate number" in the definition of "personal information" and add a section that says police agencies "shall not use any technology to collect or maintain personal information in a passive manner where such data is of unknown relevance and is not intended for prompt evaluation."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/va-delegate-files-bill-to-limit-police-forces-ability-to-maintain-license-plate-databases/2014/01/17/b1b5e818-7fbf-11e3-95c6-0a7aa80874bc_story.html