4 ms·
Many states already ban the private collection of license plate data.
by ortusdux 5mo ago
Many states already ban the private collection of license plate data.
- xbar 5mo agoI did not know that. I do wish I lived in one.
- tptacek 5mo agoWhich states are those? I'd like to read the statutes.
- EvanAnderson 5mo agoThere's a nice list here with references to statutes: https://www.ncsl.org/technology-and-communication/automated-license-plate-readers-state-statutes https://www.ncsl.org/technology-and-communication/automated-...
- tptacek 5mo agoJust so we're clear, across all these statutes, the term "private" means "for private use". State and local governments can engage private firms to collect data in all of them.
- EvanAnderson 5mo agoI wonder how this figures in with states that don't permit any ALPR use by non-law enforcement. Presumably in those localities private entities can't collect ALPR data on behalf of law enforcement. This page has some more background (and the most amusing map legend I've seen in awhile): https://repo.buzz/lpr/alpr-legality-for-all-50-states/ https://repo.buzz/lpr/alpr-legality-for-all-50-states/
- ortusdux 5mo agohttps://www.ncsl.org/technology-and-communication/automated-license-plate-readers-state-statutes https://www.ncsl.org/technology-and-communication/automated-... A friend entertained the idea of a startup focused on a social dashcam site, where users can upload clips of bad drivers tagged with their license plate number, and smart dashcams can alert to bad drivers in real time. They got as far as asking a lawyer before it fell apart.
- chankstein38 5mo agoI'm glad they did the research on this lol I thought about this a decade ago when I was doing a lot of driving and always thought it'd be something I'd explore. Good to know it's against the law
- emptybits 5mo agoYikes. This smells a bit like Stasi-style surveillance. Unofficially encouraged by authorities. Rewards or social pressure or ideology turned a significant % of East Germans into Inoffizieller Mitarbeiters ("unofficial collaborators" or informants). Bad drivers today. And then ...
- throwaway85825 5mo agoThe point of the stasi collaborators was to undermine the targets personal relationships and isolate them because of the fear that they might be an informant. Publicly posting the behavior or unaffiliated parties is nothing like the stasi.
- emptybits 5mo agoRegardless of the official point of Stasi collaborators, what they did was contribute to millions of government surveillance files on fellow citizens. The similarity to a social network of public surveillance is the unpaid, unvetted, untrained manner, of collection with questionable motivation, be it social or political or simply anger. Interestingly, the contributors may also be profiling themselves as able to and willing to surveil fellow citizens, should the opportunity arise.
- throwaway85825 5mo agoThe stasi had millions of files and no technical way to search them efficiently. Random unpaid members of the public posting the most outrageous behavior they see is not a surveillance state. The chance that any one incident will be recorded is low.
- tokai 5mo agoOne just needs to store personal data on license plates then. Handy.