4 ms·

Big brother: UK camera grid to track cars via license plates

12 points by pmikal 17y ago

blhack 17y ago
We already do this in Arizona. Guys...1984 was a WARNING, not a set of instructions.
- pmikal 17y ago
  Oh man, the traffic cameras in Phoenix are horrible!
- systemtrigger 17y ago
  I live in Phoenix and you're right, some of these cameras are set up to photo every license plate that passes regardless of whether the box detected a traffic violation. It's billed as an Amber Alert mechanism so when authorities identify a suspect they plug in his license plate and every camera sniffs every vehicle. The problem is the organizations involved have been very dodgy about revealing the scope and logging details. So we're left to wonder if in addition to catching bad guys Big Brother is tracking innocent non-suspects. I'm not convinced they are and it's not necessarily bad if they did but given the track record of our government the past 8 years we should probably demand transparency. Originally we were told all these boxes did was equitably enforce speed and red-light laws efficiently at a great profit over human officers. But now it's turning into "Oh and by the way we'll be photographing the innocent non-violators too." Maybe we need an outside group of hackers to act in an oversight capacity. Or maybe we should just design that license plate switching feature from Knight Rider so if you do speed you're giving someone else a ticket. (Note to Sherriff Joe: I'm just kidding.) I am reminded of that scene in the movie Brazil when a bug literally falls into a government computer, the suspect's name gets misspelled and an innocent person is punished for what another (innocent) person did. I just hope the two Phoenix based companies working on this camera technology, Redflex and American Traffic Systems, operate on a higher set of principles than GoDaddy headquarters which is just down the street and given its turnover possibly a significant source of traffic company employees.
zandorg 17y ago
I have developed license plate-reading technology which can use a modern digital camera. Just put the technology in the hands of the masses and we can track our own cars.
- bmelton 17y ago
  Would you be willing to provide more information regarding this?
  - zandorg 17y ago
    Not currently. It's in an early alpha version which doesn't work all the time, and I haven't touched the codebase in a couple of years. I'll post to HN when I've checked it out. It rips text from images so OCR can be more accurate. For some reason, it's working on normal text, but not number plates right now...
dschobel 17y ago
I'm wondering when we're going to see the corresponding drop in punishment severity as the deterrence portion of the equation approaches nil.
robgough 17y ago
Thanks to the amount of science fiction on exactly this topic, it's like we can see our future - but we're choosing to ignore it. What they're trying to do, they're doing for "good" reasons - of that I'm sure. It's just that they don't understand the larger consequences, none of us do. And we (the general population) will continue to not understand until it is ultimately too late.

12 points by pmikal 17y ago

blhack 17y ago

We already do this in Arizona. Guys...1984 was a WARNING, not a set of instructions.

pmikal 17y ago
Oh man, the traffic cameras in Phoenix are horrible!
systemtrigger 17y ago
I live in Phoenix and you're right, some of these cameras are set up to photo every license plate that passes regardless of whether the box detected a traffic violation. It's billed as an Amber Alert mechanism so when authorities identify a suspect they plug in his license plate and every camera sniffs every vehicle. The problem is the organizations involved have been very dodgy about revealing the scope and logging details. So we're left to wonder if in addition to catching bad guys Big Brother is tracking innocent non-suspects. I'm not convinced they are and it's not necessarily bad if they did but given the track record of our government the past 8 years we should probably demand transparency. Originally we were told all these boxes did was equitably enforce speed and red-light laws efficiently at a great profit over human officers. But now it's turning into "Oh and by the way we'll be photographing the innocent non-violators too." Maybe we need an outside group of hackers to act in an oversight capacity. Or maybe we should just design that license plate switching feature from Knight Rider so if you do speed you're giving someone else a ticket. (Note to Sherriff Joe: I'm just kidding.) I am reminded of that scene in the movie Brazil when a bug literally falls into a government computer, the suspect's name gets misspelled and an innocent person is punished for what another (innocent) person did. I just hope the two Phoenix based companies working on this camera technology, Redflex and American Traffic Systems, operate on a higher set of principles than GoDaddy headquarters which is just down the street and given its turnover possibly a significant source of traffic company employees.

zandorg 17y ago

I have developed license plate-reading technology which can use a modern digital camera. Just put the technology in the hands of the masses and we can track our own cars.

bmelton 17y ago
Would you be willing to provide more information regarding this?
- zandorg 17y ago
  Not currently. It's in an early alpha version which doesn't work all the time, and I haven't touched the codebase in a couple of years. I'll post to HN when I've checked it out. It rips text from images so OCR can be more accurate. For some reason, it's working on normal text, but not number plates right now...

dschobel 17y ago

I'm wondering when we're going to see the corresponding drop in punishment severity as the deterrence portion of the equation approaches nil.

robgough 17y ago

Thanks to the amount of science fiction on exactly this topic, it's like we can see our future - but we're choosing to ignore it. What they're trying to do, they're doing for "good" reasons - of that I'm sure. It's just that they don't understand the larger consequences, none of us do. And we (the general population) will continue to not understand until it is ultimately too late.