Recently the case of an abducted girl in San Jose was quickly resolved with the help of license plate recognition (LPR) technology. The girl and had been hit by a stolen car and then abducted. She escaped from her captor but the hunt was on to catch the creep. An officer using LPR spotted a stolen car which was found to be the one used in the abduction. Investigators were then able to quickly zoom in on a suspect.
LPR utilizes digital cameras mounted on vehicles to quickly scan license plates and compare them against a database. What's in that database you might ask? Well it could be stolen cars, amber alerts, expired tags, parking ticket scofflaws, etc. In addition to scanning plates, most systems also take a complete picture of the car so that officers can provide proof that the offending vehicle was indeed there at that particular time and place. These LPR systems can scan up to 12,000 plates a day, which is a tremendous amount of data.
So what's not to like? Privacy advocates worry about what else the data collected by LPR might be used for. An example might be an anti-war rally. A law enforcement vehcile could scan the plates of every vehicle in the area of that rally. Over time officials could develop a database of vehicles that show up at all such anti-war events and that data could then become part of a larger investigation. Suddenly tracking the whereabouts and habits of thousands of people becomes much easier. Seemingly innocuous uses could become sinister. Big brother.
So what's not to like? Privacy advocates worry about what else the data collected by LPR might be used for. An example might be an anti-war rally. A law enforcement vehcile could scan the plates of every vehicle in the area of that rally. Over time officials could develop a database of vehicles that show up at all such anti-war events and that data could then become part of a larger investigation. Suddenly tracking the whereabouts and habits of thousands of people becomes much easier. Seemingly innocuous uses could become sinister. Big brother.
There is also the potential abuse by private businesses. Casinos already use LPR to identify when high rollers or cheats drive into the parking lot. It could be only a matter of time before other businesses follow suit. It's one thing when a business rolls out the red carpet for you before you open your door, but another when it gives you the cold shoulder or jacks its prices because it knows you're a sucker.
As you can see LPR has unlimited potential. As I sit here and write this post I keep thinking of new uses/abuses for the technology. As it stands right now, LPR is mostly being used for good. It helps catch crooks and frees up law enforcement for other duties. No one is going to argue with that. However, limits need to be put into place to make sure our rights are protected.
Source: SFGate article
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