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I should be able to see the comings and goings of law enforcement, elected officials, etc, if they can see mine.

Alternatively, lock it away behind judicial oversight. Make the cops get a warrant. Criminalize companies collecting the data from offering it in any manner other than by the order of a judge.

I feel the same way about tracking cell phones, publicly-owned surveillance cameras, privately-owned surveillance cameras that are "voluntarily" offered to law enforcement, and, in general, any dragnet surveillance available to law enforcement. If it's available to law enforcement and not being conducted on an individual basis under a judicial order (or, heck, even just probable cause) I think it should be available to the public, too.

"But stalkers!"

Tough. That's the price we have to pay for keeping law enforcement in check. Either adapt or take this power away from law enforcement.

Because of how effective this is for catching even fairly minor violations like failure to pay vehicle tax, number plate cloning is becoming pretty common (comparatively) in the UK. This means that you can easily get swept up in a police dragnet because someone has stolen your car's identity.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-anpr-ser...

If they knew that every time they looked I would know about it, they wouldn't look so much. Similarly to how people are much less stalky on LinkedIn and Instagram because they know that the other person gets notified when they look.

That's part of my grievances against the urbanism of the U.S.A. When the only viable option to get around is cars, there is no privacy.

It's important to advocate for public places to be livable for everyone, not just drivers.

These ALPR companies are evil. If a car manufacturer sells your data or a big box store uses AI in ways you disagree with you can just not purchase from those companies. It can be much more difficult to move to a new town where they may then decide to put these things. I know of one town where it is impossible to drive without hitting an ALPR. What a prison.

Here is a list of things that have been or could be done:

- wrong vehicle identified and stopped at gunpoint

- sacramento sheriff shared LP data with Texas in case pregnant people visited

- police chief stalked his ex

- a mad president could unreasonably declare martial law and send the national guard in to the Atlanta office to take over the command center (if you take the license plate off: how many silver Audi A4s are there in Palo Alto?)

- a foreign state actor could surreptitiously infiltrate their servers and discover patterns that help them if they declare war against the US

- the data will be leaked (high likelihood eventually) and you can find out all kinds of behaviors. It would be fair game for insurance companies.

It violates the 4th amendment. A governement cannot just track innocent people everywhere they go. They sell it as "we aren't giving tickets, we are only looking for bad guys" but the above incidents (gunpoint, sheriff, stalking ex) show otherwise. But what concerns me is not the local police, it is the last three potential situations. And you can't opt out unless you take ubers or bike I guess.

Please donate to the Institute for Justice. They have a case in Virginia (surprised it wasn't mentioned) and I am confident they will succeed in taking this to the Supreme Court. They recently won a civil asset forfeiture case and they have successfully argued cases like DC's gun ban before the supreme court. (If you think guns are bad, fine, but like ALPRs it was a violation of the US constitution) ij.org

Edit: spelling, formatting

> In just a few taps and clicks, the tool showed where a car had been seen throughout the U.S. A private investigator source had access to a powerful system used by their industry, repossession agents, and insurance companies. Armed with just a car’s plate number, the tool—fed by a network of private cameras spread across the country—provides users a list of all the times that car has been spotted.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/i-tracked-someone-with-licen...

And as has been mentioned a couple other places in this discussion, please contribute to mapping out license plate readers in OpenStreetMap at https://deflock.me. Ideally someone will create a routing engine which with an option to avoid all known ALPR's while generating a route.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tptacek

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41927777

Interestingly they seem to be taking the place of the old, bulky, tow behind camera rigs that used to be in several of these locations. Those other devices were large trailer rigs with flashing blue lights and camera's up on a tower.

I hope there's also litigation for this given it is also public record when it's being purchased with tax dollars. Especially if they're just asking for the identifications of their own vehicle. It seems similar to denying me a copy of their record of my actual fingerprint.

I’m in support of better investigative tools and stricter governance. I’m not worried that my car location would lead to a false arrest- that is like being afraid of lighting striking.

Saying these requests constitutes a felony is ludicrous, hopefully the judge sees the case as a bad prank.

I have always avoided bumper stickers and custom license plates for more anonymity. I have a ham radio license and decided not to get a license plate with my callsign on it because people could easily Google that and find out my name and address. I had always just thought about other drivers in these cases, not law enforcment surveillance!

Good to know the state knows me and isn't even bashful about it...

Twelve of them around a high density shopping center is perfectly reasonable.

Just one at the entrance of a neighborhood is severe overreach.

I don't mind the idea of building a surveillance state within certain parameterized boundaries, but once you are in a residential setting these things feel like military incursion. Homeowners can already opt-in to video doorbells, security cameras on their properties, etc.

Home Depot & law enforcement don't need a 500-mile diameter security perimeter around each retail store to catch the guy stealing Milwaukee products. The cameras in the parking lot and leading up to the freeway should give you enough room to play with unless you are vastly incompetent at basic police work.

Oh yeah and police surveillance something.

'Part of Flock’s proprietary tech determines the make and model of the vehicle and also notes if there are bumper stickers, bike racks, any other unique markings that would help identify that vehicle. That generates a "vehicle fingerprint" for every car or truck'

So in just the same way that ad blockers and other anti-surveillance tech actually make your browser stand out, obfuscating your license plate would also make you stand out.

Is anyone watching the watchers? Who is policing the police? What checks and balances do we have?

We think of public surveillance as a sort of crime prevention, and in a certain ways it is. However, the possible abuse of it is mind boggling.

Waymo and et al are touted for making our lives easier (load of marketing bs), but really will make it more difficult.

edit: and they get to double dip — users paying to use and install their product, and selling that data back to the user and LE and intelligence communities.

Here are the statistics on Roanoke VA's flock cameras for the last 30 days.

Meanwhile, in the Bay Area (one of the most economically productive regions of the world) even attempted burglary is functionally not a crime: if there is no footage, nothing was taken, it’s not an active crime, and the value of your smashed window is under some threshold, police will direct you to fill out a form online which will almost certainly not result in an investigation or arrest. Worse yet, if you report to insurance, you will be punished in the form of higher premiums.

I would immediately surrender such information either way, in the interests of the community - say for a missing child?

These capabilities should have well defined intent/objectives and transparent controls to protect the privacy of individuals to which are out scope.

With all the above said; it’s been proven time and time again that even with clear intent - the purpose of these systems mutates (ie between governments). Said governments then wonder why public trust is lacking?

(Example; see Australian Government customer ISP DNS requirements)

They are growing and showing up everywhere, but you never hear about them in terms of real innovation, just helping build the surveillance state. Combine this with cloud based doorbell cameras and it seems like someone is always watching.

What? Who has an expectation of privacy 'even in public spaces'? You're in public with a serialized mode of transportation (license plate) that requires a state-issued license to operate. Why would you expect 'privacy' in public?

Welcome to the future.