8 ms·

There is very little which is less private than a license plate. They are explicitly designed to be as public as possible, as they should be.

Amadou 13y ago
They are explicitly designed to be as public as possible, as they should be. They were designed in an age in which pervasive video-cameras and back-end databases that never forget were pure science fiction at best. In effect, the terms of the public's contract with the state regarding license plates have changed. It's time we re-negotiate that contract in light of the new circumstances.
greenyoda 13y ago
I think that's totally missing the point of the article. The license plates are being used to track where every person goes over a long period of time, which can uncover some very private information about people, like whether the person is cheating on their spouse, or sees a psychiatrist on a weekly basis. And yes, you can find this out just by physically following someone wherever they go, but since that's impractical to do on a mass scale, it's not likely to be done for people who aren't targets of specific criminal investigations. License plate scanning collects this personal information indiscriminately about totally innocent people. And this information is likely to be abused by people in positions of power, just like existing records about people are. I can't count how many times have I've heard about cops getting in trouble for running unauthorized database searches on ex-girlfriends, etc. Detailed data about a person's every movement would be even more tempting to abuse.
- VladRussian2 13y ago
  well, it is called intelligence fusion centers and license plates is just a minor piece. Pretty spotty. Face recognition info from surveilance cams pretty spotty as well. Credit card transactions - similar. Cell phone position is much better... Once taken together ("fused" dare i say :) - works like a charm i guess. Guys from Palantir would know better i guess what Suspicious Activity Reports are cooked there: http://www.palantir.com/_ptwp_live_ect0/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/PCL_FusionCenters.pdf http://www.palantir.com/_ptwp_live_ect0/wp-content/uploads/2... "...many Fusion Centers have gradually shifted to a broader mission of providing general criminal intelligence and all-crimes, all-hazards analysis support for constituent agencies."
  - Amadou 13y ago
    "...many Fusion Centers have gradually shifted to a broader mission of providing general criminal intelligence and all-crimes, all-hazards analysis support for constituent agencies." Inevitable given that terrorism is effectively non-existent in the US. When you have a great big expensive hammer, you just have use it on something.
- diminoten 13y ago
  You're taking actions in public, of course it's not private. Where do we get this idea that, not only do we have a right to privacy, but we have a right to privacy everywhere, all the time? As for potential for abuse, guns can be abused too - that doesn't mean guns aren't allowed at all. Or if your country does ban guns, think of something else that might be abused but is allowed anyway. Just because something could be abused doesn't mean that's a valid reason for not doing that thing.
  - pfraze 13y ago
    The implication of license plates changed from individual tracking (recording the plate during a crime) to mass tracking (recording all plates all the time). That's very different. Also, misusing a gun is different than misusing information.
  - angersock 13y ago
    When one is in public, out of eyesight of any non-friendlies, one does indeed expect privacy. When one is moving across several disparate geographical locations, there is indeed an expectation of privacy. The simple "hurf durf you're in public ergo no privacy ever" argument is horseshit, to put it bluntly.
    - res0nat0r 13y ago
      Not really. Where are these exceptions above you mention defined in the law?
      - nitrogen 13y ago
        As one example, you are not legally allowed to record a conversation to which you are not a party, and in some states, you need all participants' consent.
        res0nat0r 13y ago
        But driving down the street and having your unique identifier on the back of your captured via camera isn't against the law.
Lagged2Death 13y ago
It's one thing to be identifiable in the here and now; it's quite another to have your movements recorded and kept on file for an unspecified period of time. That creates the same privacy problems that collection and analysis of telephone and email "metadata" create. http://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metadata-to-find-paul-revere/ http://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metada...
schoen 13y ago
If license plates were meant to be as public as possible, it would be possible for the public to find out who the registered owner of each car was! In my understanding, license plates were created for two reasons: * To enforce registration requirements for cars and drivers in order to enforce training standards (for drivers) and safety standards (for the construction and inspection of cars) * To allow the easier identification of the party responsible for an accident (and maybe for certain other infractions, like speeding, parking violations, or abandoning a vehicle) That means that other uses to which license plates have been put are a kind of mission creep. Where they harm motorists' privacy, we can reasonably see them as a failure in the design and implementation of the license plate system. If we had a license plate system that let people responsible for accidents and traffic infractions be identified and that ensured cars were safe without also making it easy to figure out individual people's travel patterns, I'd view that as a strict improvement over the status quo -- and more legitimate, because it wouldn't impose unrelated burdens on motorists. Right now we're creating and deploying lots of other systems that assign unique identifiers to people and their possessions. Those systems are meant for specific purposes, which their users may see as legitimate, but designing them in the simplest, most obvious way will cause collateral damage to privacy by allowing often invisible kinds of tracking and profiling of people's activities, whereabouts, and relationships. If those uses are not the intended purpose, we should demand more careful designs that end up enabling them.
- ams6110 13y ago
  You forgot the primary reason: the fees.
mehmehshoe 13y ago
Oh the cameras are public too! Well not just the cameras but the default passwords that secure them. Vid of the Defcon talk titled "Drinking from the firehose known as Shodan. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhNWwFu1Qjs&list=PLCDA5DF85AD6B4ABD&index=35 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhNWwFu1Qjs&list=PLCDA5DF85AD...

Amadou 13y ago

They are explicitly designed to be as public as possible, as they should be. They were designed in an age in which pervasive video-cameras and back-end databases that never forget were pure science fiction at best. In effect, the terms of the public's contract with the state regarding license plates have changed. It's time we re-negotiate that contract in light of the new circumstances.

greenyoda 13y ago

I think that's totally missing the point of the article. The license plates are being used to track where every person goes over a long period of time, which can uncover some very private information about people, like whether the person is cheating on their spouse, or sees a psychiatrist on a weekly basis. And yes, you can find this out just by physically following someone wherever they go, but since that's impractical to do on a mass scale, it's not likely to be done for people who aren't targets of specific criminal investigations. License plate scanning collects this personal information indiscriminately about totally innocent people. And this information is likely to be abused by people in positions of power, just like existing records about people are. I can't count how many times have I've heard about cops getting in trouble for running unauthorized database searches on ex-girlfriends, etc. Detailed data about a person's every movement would be even more tempting to abuse.

VladRussian2 13y ago
well, it is called intelligence fusion centers and license plates is just a minor piece. Pretty spotty. Face recognition info from surveilance cams pretty spotty as well. Credit card transactions - similar. Cell phone position is much better... Once taken together ("fused" dare i say :) - works like a charm i guess. Guys from Palantir would know better i guess what Suspicious Activity Reports are cooked there: http://www.palantir.com/_ptwp_live_ect0/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/PCL_FusionCenters.pdf http://www.palantir.com/_ptwp_live_ect0/wp-content/uploads/2... "...many Fusion Centers have gradually shifted to a broader mission of providing general criminal intelligence and all-crimes, all-hazards analysis support for constituent agencies."
- Amadou 13y ago
  "...many Fusion Centers have gradually shifted to a broader mission of providing general criminal intelligence and all-crimes, all-hazards analysis support for constituent agencies." Inevitable given that terrorism is effectively non-existent in the US. When you have a great big expensive hammer, you just have use it on something.
diminoten 13y ago
You're taking actions in public, of course it's not private. Where do we get this idea that, not only do we have a right to privacy, but we have a right to privacy everywhere, all the time? As for potential for abuse, guns can be abused too - that doesn't mean guns aren't allowed at all. Or if your country does ban guns, think of something else that might be abused but is allowed anyway. Just because something could be abused doesn't mean that's a valid reason for not doing that thing.
- pfraze 13y ago
  The implication of license plates changed from individual tracking (recording the plate during a crime) to mass tracking (recording all plates all the time). That's very different. Also, misusing a gun is different than misusing information.
- angersock 13y ago
  When one is in public, out of eyesight of any non-friendlies, one does indeed expect privacy. When one is moving across several disparate geographical locations, there is indeed an expectation of privacy. The simple "hurf durf you're in public ergo no privacy ever" argument is horseshit, to put it bluntly.
  - res0nat0r 13y ago
    Not really. Where are these exceptions above you mention defined in the law?
    - nitrogen 13y ago
      As one example, you are not legally allowed to record a conversation to which you are not a party, and in some states, you need all participants' consent.
      - res0nat0r 13y ago
        But driving down the street and having your unique identifier on the back of your captured via camera isn't against the law.

Lagged2Death 13y ago

It's one thing to be identifiable in the here and now; it's quite another to have your movements recorded and kept on file for an unspecified period of time. That creates the same privacy problems that collection and analysis of telephone and email "metadata" create. http://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metadata-to-find-paul-revere/ http://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metada...

schoen 13y ago

If license plates were meant to be as public as possible, it would be possible for the public to find out who the registered owner of each car was! In my understanding, license plates were created for two reasons: * To enforce registration requirements for cars and drivers in order to enforce training standards (for drivers) and safety standards (for the construction and inspection of cars) * To allow the easier identification of the party responsible for an accident (and maybe for certain other infractions, like speeding, parking violations, or abandoning a vehicle) That means that other uses to which license plates have been put are a kind of mission creep. Where they harm motorists' privacy, we can reasonably see them as a failure in the design and implementation of the license plate system. If we had a license plate system that let people responsible for accidents and traffic infractions be identified and that ensured cars were safe without also making it easy to figure out individual people's travel patterns, I'd view that as a strict improvement over the status quo -- and more legitimate, because it wouldn't impose unrelated burdens on motorists. Right now we're creating and deploying lots of other systems that assign unique identifiers to people and their possessions. Those systems are meant for specific purposes, which their users may see as legitimate, but designing them in the simplest, most obvious way will cause collateral damage to privacy by allowing often invisible kinds of tracking and profiling of people's activities, whereabouts, and relationships. If those uses are not the intended purpose, we should demand more careful designs that end up enabling them.

ams6110 13y ago
You forgot the primary reason: the fees.

mehmehshoe 13y ago

Oh the cameras are public too! Well not just the cameras but the default passwords that secure them. Vid of the Defcon talk titled "Drinking from the firehose known as Shodan. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhNWwFu1Qjs&list=PLCDA5DF85AD6B4ABD&index=35 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhNWwFu1Qjs&list=PLCDA5DF85AD...