Surveillance Cameras To Scan License Plates

[Conan71]

How about a private corporation given police powers and allowed to operate in secret and with no accountability?

I would be of little to no interest to these "quasi" cops as well.

If you think about it, your credit card company and bank are able to not only track your movements but purchases and whatever odd proclivities you have which might end up on a card.  They also have all of your personal information which does matter to people with more nefarious ideas.  If I were a worrier, I'd be far more concerned about that than a third party license plate scanner. 

[patric]

I would be of little to no interest to these "quasi" cops as well.

If you think about it, your credit card company and bank are able to not only track your movements but purchases and whatever odd proclivities you have which might end up on a card.  They also have all of your personal information which does matter to people with more nefarious ideas.  If I were a worrier, I'd be far more concerned about that than a third party license plate scanner.  

Credit card companies have layers of regulations to address fraud, privacy etc.

Red-Light Camera companies (operating the ALPR hardware) have a history of bribery, racketeering, fraud, etc. etc. and no oversight.

How Agencies Track Your Car and Overshare Its Info With Anyone Who Asks
https://www.lataco.com/police-sharing-license-plate-information-with-any-agency/

Former City Official Gets 10 Years In Red Light Camera Bribery Case
https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2016/08/29/former-city-official-gets-10-years-in-red-light-camera-bribery-case/

Private Companies Continue To Amass Millions Of License Plate Photos, Hold Onto The Data Forever
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150308/14332230253/private-companies-continue-to-amass-millions-license-plate-photos-hold-onto-data-forever.shtml

Red-light cameras figure given 14 months in prison for Ohio bribery scandal
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/redlight/ct-red-light-cameras-karen-finley-met-20161019-story.html

Red-light cameras come under fire, at least 7 states trying to ban them
https://www.foxnews.com/us/red-light-cameras-come-under-fire-at-least-7-states-trying-to-ban-them

FBI probing Philadelphia Authority, sources say
http://www.philly.com/philly/business/transportation/fbi-investigation-philadelphia-parking-authority-red-light-cameras-20171210.html

The Missouri Supreme Court Has Ruled Red Light Camera Laws Unconstitutional
https://www.inverse.com/article/5445-the-missouri-supreme-court-has-ruled-red-light-camera-laws-unconstitutional

Why Cities Hit the Brakes on Red Light Cameras
http://www.governing.com/topics/public-justice-safety/gov-cities-hit-brakes-red-light-cameras.html

Outsource company hired to catch uninsured drivers in Oklahoma is being sued in other states
https://www.tulsaworld.com/news/government/outsource-company-hired-to-catch-uninsured-drivers-in-oklahoma-is/article_28fe653f-1cb0-5b34-83d9-a77857695475.html

License Plate Readers Catch Few Terrorists But Lots of Poor People
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2016/08/what-are-license-plate-readers-good-for/492083/

License plate reader error leads to traffic stop at gunpoint, court case
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/after-being-held-at-gunpoint-due-to-lpr-error-woman-gets-day-in-court/

L.A. Politician Proposes Bold Plan To Wreck Homes, Destroy Lives And Abuse License Plate Reader Technology
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151127/08561332917/la-politician-proposes-bold-plan-to-wreck-homes-destroy-lives-abuse-license-plate-reader-technology.shtml

2004 police sting of Edmonton Sun reporter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerry_Diotte#2004_police_sting

[Ed W]

Red light cameras and license plate scanners are separate issues but share the same concerns about privacy and "mission creep" as new uses are found for their massive databases.

The Brits installed both speed cameras and red light cameras, and saw traffic deaths cut in half. And getting uninsured motorists off the road is certainly laudable. None of are are blind to the possible downsides, though.

[dbacksfan 2.0]

There are three legally required items you need to have the privilege to drive; A valid state issued drivers license, a valid state issued license plate and registration for the car, and valid proof of financial responsibility (insurance) in case you are at fault and cause damage to property or injure some one.

Without one of those you are driving illegally, and have no privileges to drive. Period.

[patric]

Red light cameras and license plate scanners are separate issues but share the same concerns about privacy and "mission creep" as new uses are found for their massive databases.

Oklahoma's license tag scanning is being operated by a red light camera company that has already been sued in other states for violating motorists' constitutional rights by denying the due process and equal protection under the law, if that helps.
https://newsok.com/article/5572995/company-with-contract-to-catch-uninsured-drivers-in-oklahoma-faces-legal-challenges-in-other-states


This is not a discussion of driving privileges but rather one of whether private entities can be given police power, amass and share your personally identifiable information without oversight or regulation.





Virginia Supreme Court Sees Through Police Claim That License Plate Data Isn't 'Personal'
https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/location-tracking/virginia-supreme-court-sees-through-police-claim-license

When the police keep records of the times and places where our cars have been spotted by an automatic license plate reader, does that implicate our privacy? That question lay behind an important victory that the ACLU won on Thursday in the Virginia Supreme Court.

It might seem obvious that license plate data threatens our privacy. Automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) have the ability to capture location data that can reveal details about Americans' religious, sexual, political, medical, and associational activities. Yet we have seen repeated efforts around the country to claim that license place information does not constitute "personally identifiable information" and so is not worthy of the kind of privacy protection that such information deserves.

The Virginia case involved a challenge to the collection of ALPR data under a Virginia privacy law called the "Government Data Collection and Dissemination Act," which says that personal information "shall not be collected" by state agencies "unless the need for it has been clearly established in advance." The Virginia court ruled that police license plate data collection is not exempt from the requirements of this law.

In 2013, the (conservative) former Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli issued a strong official advisory opinion stating that under the law, "active" use of an ALPR to identify vehicles that were already involved in wrongdoing was permissible, but that "passive" use of the devices to sweep up raw location data about Virginia residents was not permissible. Nevertheless, in 2014 Harrison Neal, a Virginia resident, found that the Fairfax County Police Department was doing just that, and asked the ACLU of Virginia to file suit challenging the practice on his behalf.

One of the arguments that the Fairfax County police made in its defense was that a "license plate number is not personal information." The department argued that a license plate tag is associated with a vehicle, not with a person, and a vehicle can be driven by multiple people. A plate number, it argued, "says absolutely nothing about an individual, his personal characteristics... or his membership in an organization." It argued that its ALPR equipment does not "photograph or otherwise identify the owner or driver of the vehicle," and that its ALPR database can only be searched by plate number.

But obviously a license plate number should be considered personally identifying information. While in some ridiculously literal sense it may not describe a person, it functions as an effective "index" that allows law enforcement to learn facts (and potentially very intimate ones) about a person with the click of a mouse. There are 268 million registered vehicles in the United States, but only 221 million licensed drivers, which strongly supports the common sense observation that most vehicles, most of the time, are driven by the same person, or at most a handful of family members. Even if there is some fuzziness at the margins about who exactly may have been driving a car in a particular instance, there is a strong assumption that it was the vehicle's registered owner. Most people do not loan out their cars often, if ever. Even when it comes to corporate vehicle fleets, a plate number and time of day combined with a fleet owner's records is probably enough to identify a driver.

Nor does the police department's argument hold any weight that the ALPR database itself does not contain names or other personally identifiable information. The department pretends that databases exist in isolation, rather than being distributed across increasingly cross-referenced and interlinked sets of data. In fact, the Virginia Supreme Court could not find information in the record about how the police can link plate numbers with vehicle owners, so in its ruling it sent the case back to the lower court for fact-finding on that question. But is there any doubt that if the police want to identify the owner of a vehicle captured by an ALPR device, they can easily do so?

Virginia's data act defines "personal information" as including "all information that... affords a basis for inferring personal characteristics." It's becoming easier and easier to connect separate sets of data about people, and data scientists are getting increasingly good at inferring things through fancy analytic techniques. So it's good that Virginia's privacy law includes that language, because hidden inferences will likely become an ever-growing threat to privacy. 

But no sophisticated analytics are necessary to cross-reference "vehicle location data" and "registered vehicle owner" datasets, or to understand that license plate location data is "personally identifiable" and a threat to privacy. The fact that the Fairfax County police made these arguments is a reminder that law enforcement and security agencies will push the interpretive flexibility of language past its limits when they want to preserve their power — something we've also seen with the National Security Agency. Drafters of privacy-protecting rules everywhere, take notice.

[patric]

Like private prisons, there's a basic problem with the state allowing people to use its law enforcement power for profit. The people trust the government with that power because the government is answerable to the people. Should it be sold to the high bidder?

https://www.tulsaworld.com/opinion/editorials/tulsa-world-editorial-insurance-bounty-hunters-are-looking-for-uninsured/article_4e6eaf6c-f837-5fd9-abb3-7b22cd2afab3.html

[Conan71]

Oklahoma's license tag scanning is being operated by a red light camera company that has already been sued in other states for violating motorists' constitutional rights by denying the due process and equal protection under the law, if that helps.
https://newsok.com/article/5572995/company-with-contract-to-catch-uninsured-drivers-in-oklahoma-faces-legal-challenges-in-other-states


This is not a discussion of driving privileges but rather one of whether private entities can be given police power, amass and share your personally identifiable information without oversight or regulation.





Virginia Supreme Court Sees Through Police Claim That License Plate Data Isn't 'Personal'
https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/location-tracking/virginia-supreme-court-sees-through-police-claim-license

When the police keep records of the times and places where our cars have been spotted by an automatic license plate reader, does that implicate our privacy? That question lay behind an important victory that the ACLU won on Thursday in the Virginia Supreme Court.

It might seem obvious that license plate data threatens our privacy. Automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) have the ability to capture location data that can reveal details about Americans' religious, sexual, political, medical, and associational activities. Yet we have seen repeated efforts around the country to claim that license place information does not constitute "personally identifiable information" and so is not worthy of the kind of privacy protection that such information deserves.

The Virginia case involved a challenge to the collection of ALPR data under a Virginia privacy law called the "Government Data Collection and Dissemination Act," which says that personal information "shall not be collected" by state agencies "unless the need for it has been clearly established in advance." The Virginia court ruled that police license plate data collection is not exempt from the requirements of this law.

In 2013, the (conservative) former Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli issued a strong official advisory opinion stating that under the law, "active" use of an ALPR to identify vehicles that were already involved in wrongdoing was permissible, but that "passive" use of the devices to sweep up raw location data about Virginia residents was not permissible. Nevertheless, in 2014 Harrison Neal, a Virginia resident, found that the Fairfax County Police Department was doing just that, and asked the ACLU of Virginia to file suit challenging the practice on his behalf.

One of the arguments that the Fairfax County police made in its defense was that a "license plate number is not personal information." The department argued that a license plate tag is associated with a vehicle, not with a person, and a vehicle can be driven by multiple people. A plate number, it argued, "says absolutely nothing about an individual, his personal characteristics... or his membership in an organization." It argued that its ALPR equipment does not "photograph or otherwise identify the owner or driver of the vehicle," and that its ALPR database can only be searched by plate number.

But obviously a license plate number should be considered personally identifying information. While in some ridiculously literal sense it may not describe a person, it functions as an effective "index" that allows law enforcement to learn facts (and potentially very intimate ones) about a person with the click of a mouse. There are 268 million registered vehicles in the United States, but only 221 million licensed drivers, which strongly supports the common sense observation that most vehicles, most of the time, are driven by the same person, or at most a handful of family members. Even if there is some fuzziness at the margins about who exactly may have been driving a car in a particular instance, there is a strong assumption that it was the vehicle's registered owner. Most people do not loan out their cars often, if ever. Even when it comes to corporate vehicle fleets, a plate number and time of day combined with a fleet owner's records is probably enough to identify a driver.

Nor does the police department's argument hold any weight that the ALPR database itself does not contain names or other personally identifiable information. The department pretends that databases exist in isolation, rather than being distributed across increasingly cross-referenced and interlinked sets of data. In fact, the Virginia Supreme Court could not find information in the record about how the police can link plate numbers with vehicle owners, so in its ruling it sent the case back to the lower court for fact-finding on that question. But is there any doubt that if the police want to identify the owner of a vehicle captured by an ALPR device, they can easily do so?

Virginia's data act defines "personal information" as including "all information that... affords a basis for inferring personal characteristics." It's becoming easier and easier to connect separate sets of data about people, and data scientists are getting increasingly good at inferring things through fancy analytic techniques. So it's good that Virginia's privacy law includes that language, because hidden inferences will likely become an ever-growing threat to privacy. 

But no sophisticated analytics are necessary to cross-reference "vehicle location data" and "registered vehicle owner" datasets, or to understand that license plate location data is "personally identifiable" and a threat to privacy. The fact that the Fairfax County police made these arguments is a reminder that law enforcement and security agencies will push the interpretive flexibility of language past its limits when they want to preserve their power — something we've also seen with the National Security Agency. Drafters of privacy-protecting rules everywhere, take notice.

I'm still very meh on this.  Much of what you posted is about bribery to get companies in the door with a city, not so much rogue companies selling my schedule of visiting strip clubs, dispensaries, my drug dealer in jail, and how many times I go to liquor stores during the day.

Maybe it's my mindset since I live in a village which is so small we don't even have one traffic light.  We have a small police force and they pretty well know the comings and goings of people but I've never been aware of them using that for nefarious purposes.  I like to joke that I'm probably the most reliable kidnapping target in our village since I'm generally at my B & B or brewery at any given time. 

[RecycleMichael]

I'm still very meh on this.  Much of what you posted is about bribery to get companies in the door with a city, not so much rogue companies selling my schedule of visiting strip clubs, dispensaries, my drug dealer in jail, and how many times I go to liquor stores during the day.

We all need to party with you more.

[Conan71]

We all need to party with you more.

[rebound]

You are a madman! When you stole that cow, and your friend tried to make it with the cow. I want to party with you, cowboy.

[patric]

I'm still very meh on this.  Much of what you posted is about bribery to get companies in the door with a city,

"He that lieth down with dogs shall rise up with fleas"

We should be more careful which corporations we outsource our law enforcement to.  At the absolute minimum there should be some mechanism of accountability.

Operating outside of the Oklahoma Open Records Act doesnt pass the smell test.

[Townsend]

I have no idea if there will be a country-wide government conspiracy to track individuals using this tech.

I feel there is a good chance that an employee/contractor name Dave will track his ex-girlfriend using this tech.

[Conan71]

I have no idea if there will be a country-wide government conspiracy to track individuals using this tech.

I feel there is a good chance that an employee/contractor name Dave will track his ex-girlfriend using this tech.

Fortunately, I never dated anyone named "Dave" so I think I'm in the clear.

[Townsend]

Fortunately, I never dated anyone named "Dave" so I think I'm in the clear.

Again, we'll have to take your word

[dbacksfan 2.0]

Fortunately, I never dated anyone named "Dave" so I think I'm in the clear.

Sorry Conan, we have you on tape with Dave.

https://youtu.be/rtDAK7Umk7A