>Well, police cars are driving around all the time. Tireless electronic eyes look out of the vehicle for plates, and records of every single one are made: times

>Well, police cars are driving around all the time. Tireless electronic eyes look out of the vehicle for plates, and records of every single one are made: timestamp, location, etc. The vast majority of the data collected is on people who are not suspected of any crime. But the data can be misused in innumerable ways. And - as a side note - whenever there is information stored (and poorly protected, i.e. "always") there is a good chance it will go in the hands of someone that is not the police or government. There is the known case of the Oakland Police ALPR, which data was initially available through public record request: http://records.oaklandnet.com/request/8562 http://records.oaklandnet.com/request/8562 Now the data is not "public record" anymore, but I wouldn't be surprised if - one way or the other - data harvesting companies would be able to get a copy.