License Plate Reader Technology
Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2012 10:53 am
I thought this was an interesting article on page 1 of Daves favorite publication, the Wall Street Journal (Sept 29-30).
I had read in the Arizona Republic that the Phoenix Police had a new technology in a couple of places on the freeway system in Phoenix which passively read passing license plates and then would notify the cops if one went by that was wanted. It apparently worked pretty slick. As soon as a car was stolen, the license plate was entered in the system and several had been nabbed that way. Ditto a child abduction, etc. Any crime where a car is a get-away tool.
As the cost of everything digital is falling, the use of that technology is expanding super rapidly.
During the last five years, the Department of Homeland Security has distributed over $50 million for automated license plate reading systems. The recipients range from Los Angeles to Crisp County, GA. The WSJ obtained two years worth of plate information from the Riverside County Sheriffs Dept., which has 49 plate scanning cameras. Two million license plates were scanned. One estimate is that 37% of city police departments now use the readers.
If the police were to put a GPS on your car, they would have to get a court order. There is no court order needed to scan your plates on the street. Nor is there any kind of restriction on how long they can store the data. One legislator wanted to put a two year limit on storing the data, but law enforcement pushed back for eternal storage. There has been the occasional case of misuse. One lieutenant in Washington DC pleaded guilty to extortion for scanning plates around a gay bar and then blackmailing the owners.
The technology has gotten so cheap (down to $15,000 installed per vehicle) that you now see private business using it. One repo company doubled their daily take of cars (was 6 and now is 15 per day) by trolling thru apartment parking lots, etc. and scanning license plates. They are looking at the commercial possibilities of a selling access to a private data base. One business owner was quoted as saying, I take absolute exception to any government telling me that I cannot go into public and take video. Thats taking my freedoms away. He says that his company has snapped hundreds of millions of plates nationwide. His words speak more eloquently than I ever could about the depth of his moral fiber and the width of his intelligence.
As Col. Lisa Shay, a professor at West Point, was more pointed, We dont have a police state in this country, but we have the technology.
Personally, I can remember when I was about twenty reading that the feds were absolutely reassuring people not to worry about getting a social security number because it would never, ever, ever be used for identification, only as an account number like you have at the bank. Funny how evolving technology makes a lie of assurances.
I had read in the Arizona Republic that the Phoenix Police had a new technology in a couple of places on the freeway system in Phoenix which passively read passing license plates and then would notify the cops if one went by that was wanted. It apparently worked pretty slick. As soon as a car was stolen, the license plate was entered in the system and several had been nabbed that way. Ditto a child abduction, etc. Any crime where a car is a get-away tool.
As the cost of everything digital is falling, the use of that technology is expanding super rapidly.
During the last five years, the Department of Homeland Security has distributed over $50 million for automated license plate reading systems. The recipients range from Los Angeles to Crisp County, GA. The WSJ obtained two years worth of plate information from the Riverside County Sheriffs Dept., which has 49 plate scanning cameras. Two million license plates were scanned. One estimate is that 37% of city police departments now use the readers.
If the police were to put a GPS on your car, they would have to get a court order. There is no court order needed to scan your plates on the street. Nor is there any kind of restriction on how long they can store the data. One legislator wanted to put a two year limit on storing the data, but law enforcement pushed back for eternal storage. There has been the occasional case of misuse. One lieutenant in Washington DC pleaded guilty to extortion for scanning plates around a gay bar and then blackmailing the owners.
The technology has gotten so cheap (down to $15,000 installed per vehicle) that you now see private business using it. One repo company doubled their daily take of cars (was 6 and now is 15 per day) by trolling thru apartment parking lots, etc. and scanning license plates. They are looking at the commercial possibilities of a selling access to a private data base. One business owner was quoted as saying, I take absolute exception to any government telling me that I cannot go into public and take video. Thats taking my freedoms away. He says that his company has snapped hundreds of millions of plates nationwide. His words speak more eloquently than I ever could about the depth of his moral fiber and the width of his intelligence.
As Col. Lisa Shay, a professor at West Point, was more pointed, We dont have a police state in this country, but we have the technology.
Personally, I can remember when I was about twenty reading that the feds were absolutely reassuring people not to worry about getting a social security number because it would never, ever, ever be used for identification, only as an account number like you have at the bank. Funny how evolving technology makes a lie of assurances.