Carlsbad, CA to photograph every car entering city | Hacker News Reader

Carlsbad, CA to photograph every car entering city

sandiegouniontribune.com

119 pointst2378 comments

> Four council members, however, said they’re confident the information can be kept secure

Based on what? The contract appears to be with a company that provides safety equipment, not electronics/surveillance equipment. How exactly is Mallory Safety & Supply a trusted security provider?

> and that the system will increase safety for residents and police officers.

Based on what?

> They also said it may deter criminals from breaking the law in the city.

Based on what?

> “It’s really hard to put a price on trying to fight crime,” said Mayor Matt Hall. “When it’s a violent crime, and you can prevent it, how do you put a price on that?

What about all the times when it's not a violent crime? When it's not a crime at all? The statistics cited at the beginning of the article didn't mention violent crimes at all.

My prediction: within a year, Mallory Safety & Supply will file a Firefox bug report requesting that no "login security threat" be shown on their super secure data portal login.

In my opinion, just follow the money trail and relationship net:

Does Mallory have any cousins, dear friends, family members in Carlsbad city govt?

If so, it might explain why they won a contract ($$$!) for which they probably aren't qualified.

And if you want to take it deeper, you ask yourself if the program is even justified in the first place :)

I doubt it. Just looking at http://www.uscommunities.org/suppliers/safeware-mallory/ gives you a fairly good guess as to how Mallory might have been chosen.

Am I missing something? This is a company website that contains stock photos, sales jargon and boring "solutions".

Why are they qualified to receive taxpayer money to surveil vehicles wholesale, let alone receive money at all?

>Why are they qualified to receive taxpayer money to surveil vehicles wholesale, let alone receive money at all?

I assume they were the lowest bidder on the contract, but I don't know how contracts are awarded in Carlsbad.

Edit: looks like they probably placed a bid from here: https://www.planetbids.com/portal/mobile/bidList.cfm?company...

Mallory Safety & Supply is a distributor, not a manufacturer. Poking around, they seem to be advertising the sale of relevant law enforcement equipment for some time: <http://www.uscommunities.org/suppliers/safeware-mallory/>. Although it should be noted the original RFP only covered effectively firefighting safety equipment (<http://www.safewaremallory.com/pdf/SM_Master_Agreement.pdf>).

It looks like US Communities is a system whereby a jurisdiction can contract with a supplier for various goods and services and let other jurisdictions get the same goods and services from the supplier for the same price.

Based on bureaucratic overconfidence.

The real problem with most american cities is that there isn't that much crime yet the politicians feel the need to fight non-existent unfightable crime by making our lives miserable. California could have lead the way in offering good solutions for homelessness, mental illness, drug war, school choice etc. but yet it pushes for more and more nazi styled policies.

How exactly is Mallory Safety & Supply a trusted security provider?

Alice and Bob are both firmly convinced that Mallory is not to be trusted. Eve seems more ambivalent...

Doesn't the city of Tiburon already photograph all cars going in and out of the city[1]? There is only one road in and out of it (a circular/peripheral road) and given most inhabitants are of means, they got break-ins and robberies from people not living within Tiburon, so they decided to photograph vehicles going in and out of their community.

[1]http://www.marinscope.com/twin_cities_times/news/tiburon-to-...

    Councilman Keith Blackburn, a retired police officer. “I don’t think this ... is going to violate privacy.”

And if it does, I'm 100% confident that the likes of Mr. Blackburn will do everything in their power to protect the cops over the citizenry.

One aspect of this that isn't widely discussed is that license plate data collected is often shared or rented to auto financers and lenders by the company or municipality collecting the data. It allows them to keep tabs on subprime auto loan debtors (the numbers of which have been booming in the US the past few years).

Sources: http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/10/16/356...

http://www.alliedsolutions.net/Our-Solutions/Collections.asp...

Honestly, why do we expect privacy on a public road?

I could install small camera on my house, direct it at the road, and start recording. Run it through some image recognition, and share it online. Am I violating your privacy?

I tend to agree. I think the problem with this system isn't the privacy aspect, but rather the waste of tax money.

We've established this time and time again, it's the scale and comprehensiveness of the coverage and the power/authority of the entity collecting the data that matters.

Given that this is a city, it seems like this fight will come up a million times across the country. Is there some more federal legislation that should be pushed to block this type of practice?

Something akin to the consumer privacy act, but instead the citizen privacy act?

lol, who do you think is going to fund this?

But if enough people did this, someone could aggregate the data and get this same effect.

Maybe, but it's illegal for sure. The filming is, unless you have a good reason like "cars are being set on fire nearby, I'm watching my own"; and by facial recognition all the more if you have no damn good reason.

Maybe laws are different wherever you live but you didn't mention a jurisdiction.

How about simple prevention? I want to see who drives around in case someone steals something from my house?

Still not allowed, not in the Netherlands at least.

Well, it's a good thing this article is about the US, where the right to film in public is 100% legal under all circumstances.

The US is not Europe.

I was responding to someone who said whether "we" can expect privacy on a public road. I felt included in "we" being hacker news. Could also be "we the US" vs the rest of the world but that's not how I like to think of it generally...

Well, unlike the police in your scenario, you don't have the legal power to affect one's rights for one. And the 'sharing online' part could be considered some sort of legal infraction on privacy

Carlsbad is unusual among the small towns in the North County area for having its own PD. And it's gained some notoriety: https://youtu.be/WhYRYzzA244

Fastrak already does this, using any toll crossing or paid express lane triggers it. Good luck entering SF from Marin without getting scanned.

And inside Marin, the town of Tiburon does this as well - stoplight cameras at every entry/exit point.

I'll throw this in too. If you drive an older vechicle don't enter Tiburon after nightfall. They will pull you over for no reason.

The camera was installed because Tiburon had some weird murders. There all involved wealthy residents. In each case the their was no theft. In each case, it appeared the deceased appeared to know the killer.

I understand the frustration of the little police force. I don't understand harassing poor people.

On a side note, the camera was installed before it was routine to have videos on your home. Since their are so many cameras throughout the city now, and on all those million dollar plus homes; take the town's camera down.

Startup Idea! A service that provides an 18-wheeler to drive into with your vehicle that gets you into the city without being tagged (so basically it's the truck from Spy Hunter but with a phone app).

I bet your quip got down-voted because you didn't specify that the 18-wheeler would be autonomous.

At first it wouldn't be but that's just to get an MVP going (queue the blog post about getting a commercial drivers license so you can pilot the first truck yourself).

The plans for a full AI commanding a fleet of autonomous cars goes into the PPT for the seed round.

> it's the truck from Spy Hunter

I was thinking Knight Rider.

Spy Hunter is the one where when you enter the truck you get upgrades.

In this case, your privacy gets upgraded.

Just have to take an Uber.

Then you choose between a company tracking you or a city tracking you...

True. Perhaps the last best case for taking a taxi.

Or a bus, paid with cash, wearing a veil.

Steal car to commit crimes with, problem solved.

Fastrak is shipped with a mylar bag that prevents scanning so you can have privacy on-demand. Also, Caltrans routinely scans Fastrak transponders silently in non-toll areas to gauge traffic flow.

They still do ALPR from cameras to determine where to send the bill/ticket if you go through the lane without a pass.

they photoscan your license plate regardless.

i have one fastrak box and 4 vehicles. just registered all of them online, now i no longer need the box. this way they're also catching toll offenders.

golden gate bridge is fully automated now, scans every vehicle, no opt out lane.

"Also, Caltrans routinely scans Fastrak transponders silently in non-toll areas to gauge traffic flow."

Wow really? Where exactly? The trackers are not that small and I doubt they are all over 280 or 101 otherwise I would have noticed them by now..

I've seen a video of someone who rewired their transponder in NYC and showed it actually got scanned at every second intersection. You can do something similar with yours. I'm not too worried about it per se, since a camera can do something similar.

I'm pretty sure this is the talk you're thinking of.[0]

[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZxKlFV0chw

EzPass toll tags being read outside toll areas is very common through out the tri-state area. The project mahyarm mentioned below is called "Midtown in Motion" where the tags are used to control the traffic light timing dynamically throughout the day (with humans overseeing too). You can find the readers placed usually behind information signs that are mounted on gantries or just plain in the open on traffic lights: https://b-i.forbesimg.com/kashmirhill/files/2013/09/Screen-S...

The other uses for the tag data include generating real time travel time to NYC airports from certain location in the metro area, as well as the data is fed into planning and road maintenance authorities.

Finally related to the article about taking a picture of every car, this is really nothing new as every car that drives into Manhattan has its plate read regardless of which bridge or tunnel you take, and those ALPR's are operated by NYPD... https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/20/Brookyn_Bridg...

I've seen those in NYC and don't doubt it, I'm talking about the Bay Area though.

How good are those cameras, though? I've crossed from Marin at least 8 times now, each time with the "cash taker" lanes having no staff. I assumed it would be like in Houston, where you just get billed via mail, or can call and pay. Nobody I've called is aware of me owing anything on my plate, though, and I've never got anything in the mail.

Maybe I did my plates wrong... I also never received the ticket the angry SFO cop promised I would get for not picking up my friend fast enough.

they have 100% success rate with my vehicles, one of them a motorcycle with very dirty plates.

are those parking enforcement people at SFO cops? I always thought they were hired hands or something. They do wear shiny badges to look like cops though.

While the police have their faults, they usually control things much better, I feel. The dropoff area at SFO is a tragedy.

Fly SJC or OAK whenever you can. Much less painful.

Yup, I usually stick to SJC, except Intl. flights. I go there mostly to pick up visiting friends.

> Nobody I've called is aware of me owing anything on my plate, though, and I've never got anything in the mail.

Check that your mailing address on file with the DMV is up to date.

You'll get the bill, but in 10 years when it and the associated late fees have escalated and accrued interest. At that stage they'll just send you a notice saying they've taken possession of your house and you must vacate within 7 days or go to jail.

My parents (from out of state) got their Golden Gate Bridge toll in the mail a long time after they visited. I forget exactly, but I think it was at least a year later. There were no late fees or anything like that.

Just don't put your plates on. It's just a fixit ticket in CA, for a while.

I don't see why this is surprising to people.

In North Texas, all toll collection has been electronic since 2010. Either you have a TollTag or a camera takes a picture of your license plate and a bill is mailed to the address associated with your license plate number (at massively inflated cost; they really want you to either get a TollTag or stay off the toll roads). All tollbooths have been ripped out of every toll road in North Texas and replaced by scanners that can operate at high speeds. Traffic now flows much better now that there isn't a bottleneck at every toll gantry and exit ramp.

Edit: Here's what an NTTA toll gantry looks like: https://goo.gl/maps/BPsWP5uo3ep

Tiburon, in Marin, already does this and has for years. http://www.marinscope.com/twin_cities_times/news/tiburon-to-...

At a later date, they'll sell that data.

Yep, like when the city gets into financial trouble and can't meet it's overstuffed pension promises. Don't worry, though. I'm sure it will just be "anonymized" data that won't be personally attachable to you and I'm sure that they will follow best security practices and there will never, ever be a hack or data breach.

> “It’s really hard to put a price on trying to fight crime,” said Mayor Matt Hall.

I bet he can put a price tag on a dozen additional police officers. No kickbacks there, though.

Am I missing something here? A small California town seems unimpressive compared to other rollouts of this technology including the entire island of Manhattan, as well as [all?] toll roads.

[0] https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/documents-uncover-nypd...

[1] http://www.mta.info/news-governor-cuomo-bridges-and-tunnels-...

" At each crossing, and at structurally sensitive points on bridges and tunnels, advanced cameras and sensors will be installed to read license plates and test emerging facial recognition software and equipment. These technologies will be applied across airports and transit hubs – including the Penn-Farley Complex – to ultimately develop one system-wide plan."

I'm wondering when they're going to make the people in my town take the FOP and actual opaque full plate covers off.

must find those cardboard 'I just bought my car at SpeedyMart' temporary number plates to fit when driving into Carlsbad...that's what people who don't want to pay the fast trak tolls in the bay area do...

Near my old workplace there was an incident where somebody tried to set a fire at night and the police got involved. The criminal got away that night, but I was impressed that they actually caught him a few days later. I got to thinking about how you could do this with today's technology when you're recording things all the time... "Give me the license plates of all the cars that arrived after 11 and left the area between 12:30am and 1:00am?" To say nothing of tracking people using cell phones. (Recall that last bit was discussed in the Snowden leaks...)

Cynical me read this as Carlsbad To Finally Just Admit They've Been Photographing Every Car Entering City for Years.

my initial reaction is to be against this, and then I think but I'm for driverless cars and that cat is pretty much born outside of the bag.

Paywall free link: http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/communities/north-county...

Ok, we changed to that from http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-carlsbad-license-pl....

Current article link still seems to have the same paywall. Interestingly, it's almost exactly the same paywall.

Edit: Seems they're both owned by the same parent company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tronc#Current_properties

Twas worth a try.

Easy to bypass, just turn off Javascript temporarily and reload the page.

Thanks! That does the trick. Used Yesscript add-on to turn of javascript for the site specifically.

union tribune (previously UT-San Diego) was purchased by parent Tronc which owns latimes among others...

I have no problem with this. Cars are incredibly dangerous, cause over a million deaths a year. I have no problem with every single car being constantly tracked.

Citation needed. For the US this number is less than 50,000, where are other 950,000 car deaths occurring?

WHO: http://www.who.int/gho/road_safety/mortality/en/

The US is about 4.3% of the world population. Typically, other populous countries have less cars per capita, but also higher accident and fatality rates.

Looking at the data, most of those deaths come from India and China - countries that have fundamental infrastructure problems. Traffic mortality is a symptom of something much bigger.

How would this help physical auto safety?

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