6 ms·

I don't see how a license plate camera is any different than a regular surveillance camera. It's even less invasive since it only records license plates and pre

I don't see how a license plate camera is any different than a regular surveillance camera. It's even less invasive since it only records license plates and presumably deletes the rest of the recording.

kaeluka 13y ago
It reads the number and allows to construct a much larger story about what people are doing. Your "less invasive" point is wrong, even if what you 'presume' is correct.
- res0nat0r 13y ago
  Driving around in public with a big id number associated directly with you has never been considered private.
  - yardie 13y ago
    There is a private and there is privacy. Walking around outside is not considered private. Following someone in public is considered stalking and is illegal. You can do things in public and still claim some semblance of privacy.
    - vonmoltke 13y ago
      > Following someone in public is considered stalking and is illegal. Actually, simply following someone around in public is not stalking and not illegal in itself. Private investigators, process servers, and repo men do this all the time.[1] Stalking requires some sort of contact, direct or indirect (e.g., making your presence known). [1] Regardless of your opinion of those trades and the people who ply them, their activities are legal.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      - yardie 13y ago
        All of those professions are licensed and bonded so they are supposed to know where that legal cliff occurs and avoid going over it. Your average layman most likely doesn't know the boundary between completely public and public privacy.
        talmand 13y ago
        So, let's say I picked a random person on the street, followed them around all day in public, do not intrude on their space or enter premises where I'm not allowed. I'm not licensed nor bonded in any way of any profession. What am I to be charged with exactly?
        HarryHirsch 13y ago
        I wish there were something that you could be charged with. If someone is charged with something that's society's verdict that something pushes the boundaries of what's acceptable and a judge needs to look at it. Seriously, following around a random human all day, what does that do for him except push boundaries? Also: collecting data on a human by a human does not scale. Large-scale automated data collection on the other hand takes on a wholly different character. Let's say someone became your political adversary fifteen years from now and you don't know it today because he is in college. You needed to dig up dirt on him, and you find out that while in college he was a prolific consumer of "My Little Pony" porn. Automation makes such a scenario possible. Without it you would have to send staffers through archives, and that's only worth it for the biggest targets.
        talmand 13y ago
        I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just trying to point that, in most cases, it is legal to follow someone around regardless of whether you have a form of license provided by the government.
slavak 13y ago
You would be right if most regular surveillance cameras were continuously running face-recognition software and had access to a vast database linking faces to identities. And the day this happens might not be that far off. As it stands for now, the privacy implications of regular surveillance cameras are limited by storage and the computing & manpower needed to analyze every frame. It's pretty certain your local police department isn't storing every frame recorded by area highway cameras for several years back; they are doing that for license plate readers, though.
- Houshalter 13y ago
  True but that's just a matter of technology to search the data. The data itself is fine. So if you forced police to manually go through the list of license plates every camera recorded, and find the one they want, that would be ok? But if they made a script to do the exact same thing automatically, it's illegal?
  - StavrosK 13y ago
    Yes.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - UweSchmidt 13y ago
    Automation is the game changer. Long term data storage, new algorithms, combining databases, new algorithms that find out stuff etc. lead to huge changes that must be taken into account when designing systems. Leave the house with the zipper down on Monday. Have a silly argument with a neighbor on Friday. Isolated incidents that will end up in the "Worst of Houshalter" - file, either available for everyone, or just a group of decisionmakers. Am I seeing this right, or am I exaggerating?
    - Houshalter 13y ago
      My point is it's the same thing, just faster/cheaper. Perhaps it should be banned or controlled. But calling it unconstitutional is a stretch I think. If that's the case, regular "dumb" surveillance cameras should be too.
Shivetya 13y ago
I don't see it as different than a cop. It is doing exactly what an officer can do, from the position of a government vehicle, and therefor should be treated as an extension of the agency or as an officer. If its legal for an officer to run every plate he sees then let the computer do it. Otherwise stop it, a computer is no different a tool than a dog.
- scintill76 13y ago
  I have been thinking about this lately. I see your point and it's hard to argue with, but I think there is a line somewhere where the nature of the surveillance changes because of the scale. We've got a lot of legislation and jurisprudence that is probably implicitly based on the assumption that not every corner has a cop sitting there watching everyone 24/7, and that constrains the potential for abuse a bit. Crank it up to virtual, unsleeping cops everywhere, always, collecting and storing all information without regard to active cases, and it gets out of hand. Maybe we should re-examine the analogy -- are computers with perfect vision, that never look away, and perfectly record any observation they are able to make, really comparable to cops? Are the resulting huge bodies of data that can be retroactively searched, really comparable to anything that existed before? This is a half-developed thought admittedly; I'm not sure it's a good argument, or what should be done.

kaeluka 13y ago

It reads the number and allows to construct a much larger story about what people are doing. Your "less invasive" point is wrong, even if what you 'presume' is correct.

res0nat0r 13y ago
Driving around in public with a big id number associated directly with you has never been considered private.
- yardie 13y ago
  There is a private and there is privacy. Walking around outside is not considered private. Following someone in public is considered stalking and is illegal. You can do things in public and still claim some semblance of privacy.
  - vonmoltke 13y ago
    > Following someone in public is considered stalking and is illegal. Actually, simply following someone around in public is not stalking and not illegal in itself. Private investigators, process servers, and repo men do this all the time.[1] Stalking requires some sort of contact, direct or indirect (e.g., making your presence known). [1] Regardless of your opinion of those trades and the people who ply them, their activities are legal.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - yardie 13y ago
      All of those professions are licensed and bonded so they are supposed to know where that legal cliff occurs and avoid going over it. Your average layman most likely doesn't know the boundary between completely public and public privacy.
      - talmand 13y ago
        So, let's say I picked a random person on the street, followed them around all day in public, do not intrude on their space or enter premises where I'm not allowed. I'm not licensed nor bonded in any way of any profession. What am I to be charged with exactly?
        HarryHirsch 13y ago
        I wish there were something that you could be charged with. If someone is charged with something that's society's verdict that something pushes the boundaries of what's acceptable and a judge needs to look at it. Seriously, following around a random human all day, what does that do for him except push boundaries? Also: collecting data on a human by a human does not scale. Large-scale automated data collection on the other hand takes on a wholly different character. Let's say someone became your political adversary fifteen years from now and you don't know it today because he is in college. You needed to dig up dirt on him, and you find out that while in college he was a prolific consumer of "My Little Pony" porn. Automation makes such a scenario possible. Without it you would have to send staffers through archives, and that's only worth it for the biggest targets.
        talmand 13y ago
        I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just trying to point that, in most cases, it is legal to follow someone around regardless of whether you have a form of license provided by the government.

slavak 13y ago

You would be right if most regular surveillance cameras were continuously running face-recognition software and had access to a vast database linking faces to identities. And the day this happens might not be that far off. As it stands for now, the privacy implications of regular surveillance cameras are limited by storage and the computing & manpower needed to analyze every frame. It's pretty certain your local police department isn't storing every frame recorded by area highway cameras for several years back; they are doing that for license plate readers, though.

Houshalter 13y ago
True but that's just a matter of technology to search the data. The data itself is fine. So if you forced police to manually go through the list of license plates every camera recorded, and find the one they want, that would be ok? But if they made a script to do the exact same thing automatically, it's illegal?
- StavrosK 13y ago
  Yes.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- UweSchmidt 13y ago
  Automation is the game changer. Long term data storage, new algorithms, combining databases, new algorithms that find out stuff etc. lead to huge changes that must be taken into account when designing systems. Leave the house with the zipper down on Monday. Have a silly argument with a neighbor on Friday. Isolated incidents that will end up in the "Worst of Houshalter" - file, either available for everyone, or just a group of decisionmakers. Am I seeing this right, or am I exaggerating?
  - Houshalter 13y ago
    My point is it's the same thing, just faster/cheaper. Perhaps it should be banned or controlled. But calling it unconstitutional is a stretch I think. If that's the case, regular "dumb" surveillance cameras should be too.

Shivetya 13y ago

I don't see it as different than a cop. It is doing exactly what an officer can do, from the position of a government vehicle, and therefor should be treated as an extension of the agency or as an officer. If its legal for an officer to run every plate he sees then let the computer do it. Otherwise stop it, a computer is no different a tool than a dog.

scintill76 13y ago
I have been thinking about this lately. I see your point and it's hard to argue with, but I think there is a line somewhere where the nature of the surveillance changes because of the scale. We've got a lot of legislation and jurisprudence that is probably implicitly based on the assumption that not every corner has a cop sitting there watching everyone 24/7, and that constrains the potential for abuse a bit. Crank it up to virtual, unsleeping cops everywhere, always, collecting and storing all information without regard to active cases, and it gets out of hand. Maybe we should re-examine the analogy -- are computers with perfect vision, that never look away, and perfectly record any observation they are able to make, really comparable to cops? Are the resulting huge bodies of data that can be retroactively searched, really comparable to anything that existed before? This is a half-developed thought admittedly; I'm not sure it's a good argument, or what should be done.