Researcher Turns Insecure License Plate Cameras into Open Source Surveillance

Some quantitative differences are so big that they are qualitative.

There is a qualitative difference between "You can walk around and people-watch with your own two eyes" and "You can collect data on thousands of people from all across any major city with thousands of machine eyes"

The law is simply out of date. There should be an expectation of privacy from surveillance.

It's one thing to have a camera giving an overview of a roadway. It's another to a camera that is reading license plates, that can be tied back to individuals. I'm not sure how much benefit the latter has to the public, but I do see how it could be harmful.

A collection of a lot of "public" information can become sensitive.

Definitely not your typical municipality. All they care about is the performance & payment bond and the certificate of insurance, generally speaking.

I’ve sold plenty of public construction work, possibly IT procurement is different?

If you’re really curious, public contract bid documents are generally available to the public, any security audit requirements would be detailed in the RFP specification.

Hahaha... no. Every municipality has different procedures and compliance guidelines for vendors, with most places just requiring you to have some sort of bond or insurance.