Police using systems to track/store every license plate they see.

[imported_Shivetya]

Every plate being scanned won't be tossed away but stored for future use. Once a warrant is issued on a plate, officers can pull up the previously scanned data, using coordinates on a map to pinpoint the exact location and time of the car when it was identified.


While the idea of catching criminals is great and all, storing information on where people regardless of when gets way to big brother for me. I can see keeping the information 30 to 90 days, but not forever. Its not their business where I drive or have driven.

Notice how they are merely after felonies now but want to go after misdemeanors. Give them an inch and they will go a mile. If its in a database you know some government employee is going to compromise it and it will get abused. It always happens. Hell, I can see the day when PI's can petition a court to get the information.


Yes I know its good to catch criminals, but the average Joe should not be given a million more reasons to fear his government. When they can just pull records up out of the blue and start asking about your activities unrelated to a paticular charge it just points to oppressiveness.

 

[EagleKeeper]

What are you fearing - where your car is seen?

 

[Turkish]

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy
What are you fearing - where your car is seen?

typical :roll:

 

[StageLeft]

This was inevitable and is the future and in this case probably quite useful.

Anything you do when out in public is PUBLIC.

If its in a database you know some government employee is going to compromise it and it will get abused. It always happens.

Like when?

 

[MadRat]

License plates should be protested if they fear prosecution so much. Oh, yeah, its lawbreakers that oppose this one. If people actually think they will track the movements among the general population then I've got a bridge to sell. These scans are of parked cars, not moving ones.

Quite frankly this capability was built into license plates for my state three years ago. They just haven't used it.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: MadRat
License plates should be protested if they fear prosecution so much. Oh, yeah, its lawbreakers that oppose this one. If people actually think they will track the movements among the general population then I've got a bridge to sell. These scans are of parked cars, not moving ones.

Quite frankly this capability was built into license plates for my state three years ago. They just haven't used it.

Ultimately, of course, this will be for moving and parked cars and tied into greater prevalance of public cameras such that, at some point in the future (inevitably), it will be possible to plug in a license plate number and literally track quite competently as it moves throughout a city. We could know its travel distance, average speeds, etc. I think that it could make solving some crimes a real nice thing, in the same way DNA evidence has been a revolution. Somebody says they saw a "black van" somewhere at such and such time, run through the DB kill off all non black-vans and end up with a small sub group of them, then go visit each van's house and see what's up.

 

[1EZduzit]

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy
What are you fearing - where your car is seen?

What I fear about crap like this is..... what's next? Mandatory GPS chips in your license plates so they can track your movements 24/7?

It's the old "The good have to suffer with the bad". I thought we were supposed to be considered innocent until proven guilty?

 

[1prophet]

Originally posted by: MadRat
License plates should be protested if they fear prosecution so much. Oh, yeah, its lawbreakers that oppose this one. If people actually think they will track the movements among the general population then I've got a bridge to sell. These scans are of parked cars, not moving ones.

Quite frankly this capability was built into license plates for my state three years ago. They just haven't used it.

The ability to track moving cars at high speed is already here.

Automatic License Plate Recognition
The Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) technology installed in police cars ?reads? vehicle plates as they enter the view of a vehicle-mounted or roadside infrared camera, and checks them against a database for nearly instantaneous identification. The system runs continuously, automatically capturing images of license plates with a camera that works in nearly every lighting condition.

Overview
Enhance your officers? safety and productivity while maximizing your department?s revenue with Motorola?s Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR). ALPR uses infrared cameras to automatically and continuously read vehicle license plates. It then checks the plates against an installed database for rapid identity verification. Your officers are free to focus on other police work knowing that they will be alerted only when a ?hit? occurs.



Automatic, Fast and Accurate

Automatically locate and match vehicle plates against wanted lists
Conduct surveillance in any environmental setting, under varying light conditions
Provides 130 mph relative capture speed with 90% accuracy
New Back Office System Server (BOSS) Software
Database formatting including ability to customize PAGIS screens and alarms based on system ?hits?
Import of national and regional databases
Ability to map all locations related to a single license plate to track movements
Ability to cross reference perpetrator ID number (driver?s license, social security, etc.) with license plate database
Wireless database updates with AirMobile Integration
Update hot list database wirelessly with AirMobile over an 802.11 or MESH network
No manual intervention is needed ? when a vehicle drives into a hotspot the list is updated
Benefits
With Motorola?s Automatic License Plate Recognition, safety and productivity go hand in hand. While your officers are busy focusing on the demands of being in the field, ALPR is automatically checking license plates to alert them to potential felons, or other wants or warrants for various violations. Officers will know when to call for back up, and they are more easily able to identify parking scofflaws, stolen vehicles, license violations, etc.

Increase Situational Awareness

Officers are alerted if they are dealing with an armed felon
They know when to call for back up
When they approach a vehicle, officers know who and what to expect
A Force Multiplier

<<Automatically matches vehicle plates against wanted lists
Facilitates Amber Alert and Be-On-The-Lookout tracking
Identifies other wants and warrants
Generate Additional Revenue
Enables parking ticket enforcement
Increases funds from collection of delinquent violations
Helps recover money from drug interdiction
Identifies stolen or wanted vehicles

Details
ALPR offers programming flexibility, reliability in varied conditions and situations, and the speed and accuracy that your officers demand in their daily work.

ALPR boasts a 90% accuracy rate and 130 mph relative capture speed.
In addition to NCIC databases, the ALPR database can be programmed to include state and local wants and warrants for various violations. Officers also can enter plate numbers into the system for Amber Alerts or other immediate alerts.
ALPR allows officers to conduct surveillance even under varied lighting and weather conditions.
ALPR uses ruggedized, infrared cameras that connect to leading-edge optical character recognition (OCR) technology software.
AirMobile integration provides automatic wireless database updates over an 802.11 or MESH network.
Back Office System Software (BOSS) enables formatting of the database with customized PAGIS screens and alarms based in system ?hits.?
National and regional databases can be imported through BOSS.
BOSS facilitates cross-referencing of perpetrator?s ID numbers (driver?s license, social security number, etc) with the license plate database.
BOSS also enables officers to map the location and track the movement of a single license plate.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
This was inevitable and is the future and in this case probably quite useful.

Anything you do when out in public is PUBLIC.

If its in a database you know some government employee is going to compromise it and it will get abused. It always happens.

Like when?

There is a fundamental difference between police having the ability to follow you in public and them actually following you without any probable cause at all. While obviously public actions are not hidden from public view, there IS an expectation of relative privacy because there is a barrier to casual surveillance...it takes time and resources for the cops to follow someone, and if you're just going about your business, they have no reason to follow you. This new technology removes that barrier, which changes the situation quite a bit. The cops COULD have been following you before, but they probably weren't because they'd need a reason to. Now they need no reason at all, in fact casual surveillance is the encouraged use of this system.

I'm not sure when we decided that our system should be designed to make the job of the police as easy as possible. Sure, cops being able to do their job SHOULD be a concern, but not the primary one, and it should never trump the rights of people who AREN'T breaking the law. That's how you get a police state.

 

[Rainsford]

By the way, this is again one of those cases where the slightest concern for civil liberties on the part of the police would give us a system that has 90% of the value with 10% of the privacy intrusion. Instead of recording EVERY plate scanned, how about only recording matches to plates with warrants on them? So it would be just as useful for finding stolen cars, but not useful for tracking Joe Sixpack's trip to the dirty video store. The only downside would be that you can't "go back in time" and find a recently reported stolen car among the plates scanned yesterday, but I'm not sure that's as useful, and it's a hell of a privacy invasion. I'm willing to live with that limitation.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: Turkish

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy
What are you fearing - where your car is seen?

typical :roll:

no one is forceing you to use your cvehicle for illegal means.

Also, it will assist law enforcement in doing there job for effectively - locate criminals.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy

Originally posted by: Turkish

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy
What are you fearing - where your car is seen?

typical :roll:

no one is forceing you to use your cvehicle for illegal means.

Also, it will assist law enforcement in doing there job for effectively - locate criminals.

QFT.

I could care less. It's not like they have any reason to follow my car.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: tenshodo13

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy

Originally posted by: Turkish

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy
What are you fearing - where your car is seen?

typical :roll:

no one is forceing you to use your cvehicle for illegal means.

Also, it will assist law enforcement in doing there job for effectively - locate criminals.

QFT.

I could care less. It's not like they have any reason to follow my car.

They don't need a reason, they're "following" every car with this system, automatically.

 

[1prophet]

The reason these systems are looked at with great interest is not catching criminals (that is a side benefit being promoted to the public), the real reason is increased REVENUE and that is how it is being marketed to municipalities.

Money talks civil rights walk, but then again if you are doing nothing wrong you have nothing to fear.

Note illegals are exempt since it against their civil rights to use this to track them:laugh:

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy

Originally posted by: Turkish

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy
What are you fearing - where your car is seen?

typical :roll:

no one is forceing you to use your cvehicle for illegal means.

Also, it will assist law enforcement in doing there job for effectively - locate criminals.

Yes, and it will ALSO assist law enforcement in locating EVERYONE more effectively. Which is in fact not their job, and something they have no reason to be doing.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: 1prophet
The reason these systems are looked at with great interest is not catching criminals (that is a side benefit being promoted to the public), the real reason is increased REVENUE and that is how it is being marketed to municipalities.

Money talks civil rights walk, but then again if you are doing nothing wrong you have nothing to fear.

Note illegals are exempt since it against their civil rights to use this to track them:laugh:

Are you joking? The history of police abuses of power in this country and every other country on earth suggest that's one of the most naive ideas ever. And in any case, civil liberties are about more than protecting yourself (rightly or wrongly) from the government, the very foundation of a free society requires that the burden of proof be on the government when they want to violate my civil liberties, not on me to prove why I need them.

 

[imported_Shivetya]

Originally posted by: MadRat
License plates should be protested if they fear prosecution so much. Oh, yeah, its lawbreakers that oppose this one. If people actually think they will track the movements among the general population then I've got a bridge to sell. These scans are of parked cars, not moving ones.

Quite frankly this capability was built into license plates for my state three years ago. They just haven't used it.

Actually the system can be used on moving cars by a moving patrol car.


It isn't lawbreakers that oppose this. There is NO reason to keep the data indefinitely.

that is my only problem with the system, keeping data indefintely.

 

[1prophet]

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: 1prophet
The reason these systems are looked at with great interest is not catching criminals (that is a side benefit being promoted to the public), the real reason is increased REVENUE and that is how it is being marketed to municipalities.

Money talks civil rights walk, but then again if you are doing nothing wrong you have nothing to fear.:camera:

Note illegals are exempt since it against their civil rights to use this to track them:laugh:

Are you joking? The history of police abuses of power in this country and every other country on earth suggest that's one of the most naive ideas ever. And in any case, civil liberties are about more than protecting yourself (rightly or wrongly) from the government, the very foundation of a free society requires that the burden of proof be on the government when they want to violate my civil liberties, not on me to prove why I need them.

Added emoticon so don't have a cow.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: 1prophet

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: 1prophet
The reason these systems are looked at with great interest is not catching criminals (that is a side benefit being promoted to the public), the real reason is increased REVENUE and that is how it is being marketed to municipalities.

Money talks civil rights walk, but then again if you are doing nothing wrong you have nothing to fear.:camera:

Note illegals are exempt since it against their civil rights to use this to track them:laugh:

Are you joking? The history of police abuses of power in this country and every other country on earth suggest that's one of the most naive ideas ever. And in any case, civil liberties are about more than protecting yourself (rightly or wrongly) from the government, the very foundation of a free society requires that the burden of proof be on the government when they want to violate my civil liberties, not on me to prove why I need them.

Added emoticon so don't have a cow.

Fair enough...

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Remember that scene from the movie Minority Report where computers and cameras recorded photos of people's retinas (or was it iris's?) from a distance? I wouldn't be at all surprised if, in the future, people have been implanted with RFID chips.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy
What are you fearing - where your car is seen?

Where were you in this thread?

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper

Remember that scene from the movie Minority Report where computers and cameras recorded photos of people's retinas (or was it iris's?) from a distance? I wouldn't be at all surprised if, in the future, people have been implanted with RFID chips.

They already do for pets. Animal control can scan them and see who they belong to. I'm sure parents will go for it for their kids. Think of the children!!!

 

[Arkaign]

Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Kommunist.

Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.

Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten,
habe ich nicht protestiert;
ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.

Als sie mich holten,
gab es keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte

 

[manowar821]

It's disgusting for one reason, and that reason is there is no motive to record the location, speed and such of every person on the road, reguardless of if they're innocient or not. WHAT THE HELL happened to innocent until proven guilty?

You supporters of this device, why don't you just admit you want an authoritarian country already.

There is no reason to be recording our movements/locations while driving, unless there is a reason to think we've done something wrong.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy
What are you fearing - where your car is seen?

Sad