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A story of repo cars driving and scanning tags has been seen on HN first time many years ago. Meanwhile a buddy of mine works for a "secret" company that has ca

A story of repo cars driving and scanning tags has been seen on HN first time many years ago. Meanwhile a buddy of mine works for a "secret" company that has cars driving around ten most criminal infested cities (such as Detroit) and mass-scanning people's faces behind mirror glass. A single car in a busy city is able to scan over 25,000 people daily. This info is later fed into the system and usual clients are Sheriff offices and bounty hunters. I wish someone like VICE did the story on it, but my buddy only showed me screen shoots, no company name, nothing. In 2019 you cannot assume you have any sort of privacy once you leave your door step, literally.

sp332 7y ago
In NH we banned automated license plate readers (ALPRs), including private use and law enforcement ones. I think this option will get more popular, like SF banning certain facial recognition scanners.
- mrlala 7y ago
  Why shouldn't law enforcement be able to use it? I mean.. wouldn't it be great to know if people are driving without valid registrations? Or if a criminal is trying to get somewhere, and you have their plates? Not sure I see a downside here...
  - sp332 7y ago
    They tend to get put into databases that are abused, sometimes by LE officers looking up family members or exes, and sometimes by hackers. Also it's creepy for the government to keep tabs on millions (well NH is only 1.4 million) of innocent people. If there's some specific car you're looking for, humans can keep an eye out for it. Anyone can still track the plates etc. but it's harder to make a all-encompasing database without automated readers. Live free or die, eh?
    - AdamJacobMuller 7y ago
      Ban collection. Permit surveillance with a warrant. There's currently an amber alert for a 5-year-old girl (presumptively) abducted here in NJ [1]. They don't (that I know of) have a license plate but if they did I don't think any person nor court would have an issue with a warrant enabling automated surveillance of that plate number. In an idyllic scenario, you could even enable automated collection and storage but only allow access with a warrant. [1] https://nypost.com/2019/09/18/amber-alert-issued-for-new-jersey-girl-dulce-maria-alavez/ https://nypost.com/2019/09/18/amber-alert-issued-for-new-jer...
eigenloss 7y ago
Out him. You won't.

sp332 7y ago

In NH we banned automated license plate readers (ALPRs), including private use and law enforcement ones. I think this option will get more popular, like SF banning certain facial recognition scanners.

mrlala 7y ago
Why shouldn't law enforcement be able to use it? I mean.. wouldn't it be great to know if people are driving without valid registrations? Or if a criminal is trying to get somewhere, and you have their plates? Not sure I see a downside here...
- sp332 7y ago
  They tend to get put into databases that are abused, sometimes by LE officers looking up family members or exes, and sometimes by hackers. Also it's creepy for the government to keep tabs on millions (well NH is only 1.4 million) of innocent people. If there's some specific car you're looking for, humans can keep an eye out for it. Anyone can still track the plates etc. but it's harder to make a all-encompasing database without automated readers. Live free or die, eh?
  - AdamJacobMuller 7y ago
    Ban collection. Permit surveillance with a warrant. There's currently an amber alert for a 5-year-old girl (presumptively) abducted here in NJ [1]. They don't (that I know of) have a license plate but if they did I don't think any person nor court would have an issue with a warrant enabling automated surveillance of that plate number. In an idyllic scenario, you could even enable automated collection and storage but only allow access with a warrant. [1] https://nypost.com/2019/09/18/amber-alert-issued-for-new-jersey-girl-dulce-maria-alavez/ https://nypost.com/2019/09/18/amber-alert-issued-for-new-jer...

eigenloss 7y ago

Out him. You won't.