We know where you’ve been: Ars acquires 4.6M license plate scans
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
2. Carol goes to website. Carol enters Bob's license plate number. Website says, "25 hits found. Enter credit card number to see times and locations". Carol enters credit card. Carol finds Bob.
3. Alice gets some of Carol's money, since she took the photos.
Why is that not a thing yet? License plate reading, unlike, say, tapping undersea fiber, is not something you need either a government's resources or a government's ability to skirt the law to do. This is easy stuff.
One could do something similar with facial recognition software, but if someone tried to make a large business out of it, I'm sure there would be significant friction.
Maybe that's what is needed to get people to realize just what the next decade or two have in store.
Here only few would actually go into lengths to set it up on their dashboard and be capturing licenses with the hope to make a dollar.
Good start to read more: http://consumerist.com/2014/03/05/the-repo-man-might-be-scan...
Here's another link: http://www.betaboston.com/news/2014/03/05/a-vast-hidden-surv...
It would be pretty easy for a Foresee to deliver a customer profile aligned on verticals in near real-time to clients based on data their network captures from major websites around the world.
What are the odds that I'm going to get a payout? That someone out there is interested and willing to pay for one of the license plates I've seen? Probably very low. Do I really want to waste my smartphone battery doing this? I'd rather have maps and music on.
The expected value of slot machines is negative too. Humans have a psychological weakness for "Just one more, I haven't won in a while, I'm due." In this case though it wouldn't even cost money to play.
The value prop for the average user is also very weak for encrypting data. I am more likely to lose all my data than prevent some theoretical malfeasance, never mind the extra time and effort. I am not a secret agent.
* A "point" system - spend "points" (or credits) to find a user by license plate. * You can buy credits with money directly, or you can earn them by contributing information
That way, if you're a data contributor, you have access to the information without having to pay. That's how data.com works.
I tried this, but camera phones are (currently) too terrible. I would be curious if anybody more skilled than me (I'm just tinkering) could make it work.
For me the interesting bit I was trying to figure out was this technique (car mounted) gave you license plate 'segments' which is to say the car in front of you may have been there for two blocks and then turned right giving you a segment that was two blocks long with a right turn at the end. If you had multiple subscribers, then you could match that segment up with a segment from another vehicle and then interpolate the path of any observed plate through an urban area. Since the general color and shape of the car is trackable, you can actually create a number of segments for different cars if you've captured their plate at any time, and if you manage 'untagged' segments (cars seen but you have yet to see a plate for) then you can add those as well. Needless to say, the taller vehicles are a "win" here for more complete surveillance.
Some commercial units apparently have tail-light detection to narrow down scanning for plates.
Another area you can explore are commercially available units. French police use on board license plates readers which seem to be quite fast (at least when you watch the french equivalent to the "cops" tv show).
http://www.teb-online.com/fr/analyse-images/lapi-lecture-aut...
LAPI(Automated Reading of License Plates) is the acronym you want to look for. I think several hardware and software manufacturers equipped different police units so if you're really interested, you'll be able to find several datasheets and derive a reasonable minimum computing power from them.
Add ability to comment on other drivers. "Idiot cut me off!!!" turns into automatic notification when any instance of the app sees that plate ("Warning: 8 reports of risky behavior for vehicle"). Include automatic marking of "seen before" ("augmented familiarity").
You've also accidentally found a very interesting side business model for Mapillary.
(except that afaik they've done considerable amount of work on actually detecting and blurring license plates, so I guess Peter would rather sink Mapillary than entering this business ;-) )
In Russia people buy dashboard cameras because there is less trust in the "system", and is consistent with the paradigm:
License plate reading, unlike, say, tapping undersea fiber, is not something you need either a government's resources or a government's ability to skirt the law to do.
Certainly not a mass consumer thing, just like most people won't become Uber drivers, but some people would do it and there is potential for making decent money.
DRN "claims to collect plate scans of 40 percent of all US vehicles annually."
You don't need to crowdsource because there's already a critical mass of users willing to pay YOU for the privilege of collecting information.
Read More: http://www.betaboston.com/news/2014/03/05/a-vast-hidden-surv...
Seems sort of like crowd-sourcing data that would be used to infringe on the freedoms and happiness of people without restraint beyond "did the payment clear?"
Count me out, thanks.
No shortage of starving commercial pilots who will work for peanuts.
- Plenty of recycling is diverted to garbage because somebody put garbage in the recycling stream
- Plenty of recycling facilities are at capacity and cannot process all of the recyclables, and divert them to garbage
Of course there are edge cases, where it's hard to draw the line between automated and semi-automated data collection, but that's why we have judges. However, it is troubling that this new technology is hitting its stride during a time which is not great for privacy rights in general.
The most justified uses for this seem to be those where your car is stolen, or suspected to be involved in a crime, or otherwise of interest for an ongoing investigation. Since there's no reason to store this data indefinitely for any of those uses, it seems like erasing non-matches within 24 hours or so would be a good way to address many of the privacy concerns. On the other hand, if the goal is now to collect as much data as possible about everyone just in case it turns out to be useful later, then things seem to be going according to plan.
Murders would be a lot easier to solve if every person was forced to wear a tracker that reported their location to the police at all times--but we would not stand for such a thing. Why should we accept a lower standard of privacy just because we're driving?
This thread so far has been entirely about what's the "right amount" of crime to prevent. But if you ask the police how much crime they should prevent and solve, the answer will be "all of it." That's their mission, after all.
The police understand how this technology can help them do that. You say 30 days will help solve more crime than 24 hours. Well, they'll say "forever" will solve even more crime than 30 days. End of discussion?
If the subject is "preventing crime," the privacy argument is already lost. So what is the counterbalance?
There has to be a reason we would make it harder for police to do their jobs. What is that reason? To me, that's the hard question, but a lot of people here on HN seem to take it for granted that there is an answer.
Privacy. That's what this comment thread was about. The privacy implications of storing this data (csmith). Then, when it would be justified to access it if it IS stored for some reason, for what crimes, and how long it would last to address privacy concerns (iak8god). Then I chimed in with some reasoning as to why a somewhat longer retention period might be warranted, and why. Is it unclear there somewhere exactly what we're discussing?
> The police understand how this technology can help them do that. You say 30 days will help solve more crime than 24 hours. Well, they'll say "forever" will solve even more crime than 30 days. End of discussion?
Since when is a discussion about one side saying what they want and then it's over? In an effort to solve more crimes, the police would undoubtedly want a lot of access to data that is kept for a long time. But the other side, the public whose information this is gets a say as well. I, for my part, would argue that if this information is even allowed to be gathered, that if police want access to it there should be strict controls and conditions.
> There has to be a reason we would make it harder for police to do their jobs. What is that reason? To me, that's the hard question, but a lot of people here on HN seem to take it for granted that there is an answer.
There is an answer, or more accurately, many answers. Civil liberties, preventing corruption, privacy, etc. There's a reason police can't detain you indefinitely without charges, why they can't enter your home without cause, why they can't seize your property without cause (and of course, there are exceptions to these which people take offense to, often rightly). Those all make the job of the police harder, but we've tried to strike a balance. It shifts back and forth over time.
> If the subject is "preventing crime," the privacy argument is already lost. So what is the counterbalance?
What, so we don't talk about it? It's not okay to have the conversation because you think the other argument isn't obvious enough? I'm not really sure your point, because to my eyes, this thread is all about balance. It feels like you're just trying to stifle discussion.
I think a lot of netizens value anonymity and tend to conflate it with privacy. I don't think anonymity is necessary for liberty or freedom. Small town folk don't have anonymity.
We should just ban uses that do restrict liberty. For example, the data shouldn't be used for prior restraint reasons. The government shouldn't block you from buying cold medicine because you go to X neighborhood that has 20% higher meth production. It shouldn't be used to troll for ticky tac violations.
Maybe the rule should be no active analysis of collected data in real time unless you are looking for a fleeing suspect or an emergency.
Unfortunately the fix will likely be to continue the surveillance and to bar public access to the data.
raw data https://www.eff.org/files/2015/01/20/oakland_pd_alpr.csv
found here http://beforeitsnews.com/libertarian/2015/01/what-you-can-le...
The state collecting this info in the first place is a parallel with Big Brother. The state handing out the data to anyone that asks is not.
I am all for more transparency when it comes to altercations with cops for instance. Body camera footage!!
There is an entire body of law regarding reasonable expectation of privacy vis-a-vis 4th Amendment search and seizure. If nothing else, even if one does not personally agree with the jurisprudence, then they might find it informative to know what the police may or may not search/seize without a warrant, probable cause and/or reasonable suspicion.
If you were to say "is it okay to read license plates and check a stolen vehicle registry" I don't think many people would complain. But if you were to ask, "Is it okay that i know where you live and work and hang out on a regular basis by just reading your license plate," that's a different story.
If they just erased the data after a few days that would take care of most privacy concerns that people have.
The guy standing on the corner waving a "We buy gold" sign seeing my car/plate is unlikely to be able to do anything with that data. But the government recording my whereabouts can draw me into any sort of investigation they like, based on correlated but not necessarily cause-related data. It's very different.
At the least, the government is our servant, not our adversary, and we're supposed to be able to limit and direct what they do. Just because the can do something does not automatically give them the right, particularly if we've told them they can't.
Unfortunately they do see themselves as our adversary, and so the question of whether we actually have given them the right to do something is often arguable.
Have a citation?
There's a difference between a human police officer who is, well, human, and a robot who has eyes in the back of their head, and remembers every single license plate they've ever seen in the past two years.
The Supreme court agreed, in United States v. Jones, that technology has changed things, and GPS trackers or license plate readers are fundamentally different than having a law enforcement officer do it the 'old fashioned way', especially because data storage is so cheap these days.
New Hampshire has completely banned automated license plate readers, and Maine, New Jersy and Virginia have already put limits on the license plate readers.
“Doesn’t bother me personally,” said Jon Kaufman, an Oakland resident. “I have nothing to hide.”
There hasn't been sufficient push back to stop this erosion. Worse there isn't sufficient push back against government agencies holding back information which they are bound by law to surrender.
Recently, I also learnt that even in the Magna Carta (1215 BC) the property of a "free person" was protected against the grasp of the potentate.
When modern governments now disable this basic right by legal trickery, than we in essence loose our freedom.
Is that really the justification, though? The only justification I've heard is that you have no reasonable expectation of privacy when driving down a public road. It has nothing to do with you v. your property or the fact that your license plate does not have constitutional rights.
The courts have agreed that you can't mindlessly swap out a police officer for a computer, save all the data and keep going as you were, but that doesn't change the fact that you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in public.
I am sympathetic that this data could be useful for law enforcement - however this data must not be released wholesale to the public and there should be limits to how long it is stored.
I have seem them before but I originally thought these devices were some sort of radar speedometer or something.
I think you have to take these technologies to their logical conclusion, because Moore's law will ultimately take it there. A camera recording every plate, everywhere it goes, stored for all time. That's not a database any people should allow their government to keep, warrant or not.
I'm glad they quoted the 2012 USA v Jones GPS tracking case, because this is exactly the same thing with an even lower cost per vehicle tracked. Ultimately I want Congress to pass a law putting limits on the data retention, but obviously that's not going to happen any time soon.
Plate != Person
To get to "Person" you need to have a permissible purpose that is already protected under the DPPA (a federal law)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver%27s_Privacy_Protection_...]
It's even worse that this kind of data can legally be obtained by FOIA. I'm all for transparency, but not where it touches the privacy of individuals.
btw, I have no particular problem with plate scanners as long as no-hits are not stored for longer than 7 days and any searches on the data heap are authorized by a judge (e.g. to gather data in a murder case).
Or better yet, start opposing its collection... if you're under the speed limit no authority has a good reason to keep track of where you're going and when.
Infrared bulbs are more similar to polarized plastic covers that obscure the plate when viewed from certain directions. Not sure if they are illegal or not but they are definitely outside the purview of the FCC.
Nowhere in the United States of America are 'citations' sent by - usually private - speed/red light cameras considered criminal offenses.
Know why? They barely stand the requirements for civil infractions in most areas. Typically these 'tickets' are implemented as backwards preconditions-to-vehicle-registration.
----
Actively jamming radar is a crime and could possibly net you trouble. Light? IR? No such 'unlawful interference' law exists at the federal level. You might be violating a state statute, but that's the extent of it.
Interfering with a civilly-implemented speed/red light camera via use of plate-obscuring equipment on your vehicle might be a state-level offense but it wouldn't be for long if challenged.
[0]http://blog.workingsi.com/2011/05/ir-led-speedred-light-phot...
[1]http://blog.workingsi.com/2011/06/improved-high-power-ir-led...
- libertarians complain "you don't know who will be in power tomorrow and (mis)use this data or allow for its misuse"
- some company comes along and buys the data off the cops because those in power let them. Maybe those in power when the law for collecting this data passed promised that this data wouldn't ever be shared, but now it's someone else or they changed their mind because fuck the people.
My gut tells me that it's a negative, but my head tells me there is, or will be, no real way to stop it being collected, even if it's not public bodies doing the collection.
There already are private companies that drive around scanning license plates and selling access to the data. One of their “use cases” is selling the data to “repo men.”
Edit: This article mentions "purpose-built camera cars":
http://www.caranddriver.com/features/screen-plate-club-how-l...
That complaint is definitely not limited to libertarians.
http://www.jhm.nl/culture-and-history/amsterdam/plaque-comme...
Unfortunately by then it was too late and that little box 'religion' on the census forms had done its damage. 10's of thousands of people dead for simply being honest about something the government might have had some good reason for asking but no necessity.
It's simply a well documented fact not associated with any 'isms' at this point that you should only store that which you need to store because you can't predict future use or access. That civil libertarians or capital-L libertarians agree with this is nice but it is about as relevant as the fact that they need to eat and breathe as well.
It'd be nice if we could simply learn history's lessons but it appears we need to re-live the past over and over again without making much headway. I can see why law-enforcement get all gooey when they realize that they can store all movement of all vehicles pretty much indefinitely and such sentiments ought to be stamped ruthlessly into the ground whenever they pop up, the temptation is just too large to leave oversight to the services that are in a position to implement such data banks.