[Johnny555]

Imagine a passive system scanning fellow motorists for an abductors car that automatically alerts authorities and family members to their current location and direction.

That's the same argument that police departments use "Well we'll only use it to capture child abductors and stolen cars and stuff".

But the truth is that there just aren't that many real child abductors out there (especially with known license plates -- and when they are known, it tends to be a child-custody dispute rather than a stranger-abduction), and meanwhile a huge database of every driver's whereabouts is being amassed with no good controls over who owns the data or what it's used for.

I'm surprised companies aren't offering the service for free in return for the database. There must be huge marketing possibilities... John Doe drives past this oil change place twice a day, let's send him a coupon, or better... John Doe's car goes to Jane Smith's house twice a week and parks there for two hours, let's send his wife an ad for a private investigator.

[taitems]

Oh dear. That's so creepy someone might actually do it!

I'm getting into home automation at the moment, so a use case that I think I deleted from the article was just letting you know that your mum or someone had pulled up in the driveway. License plates vs. a known list of visitors. Or as is happening here in some of our suburbs, "Alert: A group of 4 men have arrived in a stolen V8 Commodore"

[photonios]

I worked for a company that did exactly this. It provides security for the majority of the gas stations in the country. It scans every single license plate of cars entering the premise. It then queries a freely accessible, government provided database for the car's model and whether it was reported stolen. If it was reported stolen, the alarm goes off. Also, if the license plate is on the country-wide blacklist that the company maintains, weeeh, the alarm goes off and the pumps get blocked. They also attempt to match license plates to individuals so they can be recognised when they return. Of course, all of this is linked to transaction history etc.

[DaiPlusPlus]

> That's so creepy someone might actually do it!

It's only creepy if it's done on a targeted, individual basis, which it won't be.

As it is - in many countries you legally have no expectation of privacy in a public place, so I have no problem with en-masse ANPR. If the police eventually develops a very dense sensor network that can track every car's movement across every intersection then there would be too much information recorded for me to personally worry about it - and I still believe it would help with crime in general. The usual reactionary bullet-points based around the usual bogey-men of terrorists and child-abduction are weak and I think distract from more meaningful and impactful, but sedate arguments: e.g. it would reduce the need for inherently-dangerous hot pursuits to follow a vehicle as the cameras would do that anyway. Uninsured vehicles could be identified immediately before they get stopped for a broken taillight or involved in a collision. And cynically: APR systems could be used to compute a car's average-speed between points to determine if the car broke the speed limit).

I don't feel mass ANPR is comparable to other bulk-surveillance schemes like Internet snooping, because I believe that we do have an expectation of privacy regarding what goes through our home connections, and acting on Internet surveillance is inherently subjective - whereas ANPR can indicate if a car is known to be stolen or uninsured, that's not something that's open to interpretation.

[KGIII]

Conversely, such is prohibited in my State. If it is to be done, it must get judicial approval, be for a limited time, data deleted, and target a specific subject.

I helped the ACLU stuff the envelopes. I consider that some of my best work.

[icebraining]

which it won't be

All of History says otherwise. All surveillance mechanisms have been used to individually track dissidents, personal enemies, ex-spouses, etc. What makes this different?

If the police eventually develops a very dense sensor network that can track every car's movement across every intersection then there would be too much information recorded for me to personally worry about it

The availability of large databases (ex. DNA) have been shown to increase the number of innocent people caught in the net, since the probability of false positives increases proportionally and cops start relying on running wide searches over regular investigation techniques.

it would reduce the need for inherently-dangerous hot pursuits to follow a vehicle as the cameras would do that anyway

Only if you have a complete panopticon, with no gaps, which in a wide enough are will be difficult, if not impossible.

[Johnny555]

it would reduce the need for inherently-dangerous hot pursuits to follow a vehicle as the cameras would do that anyway.

It wouldn't really reduce the need for the infamous hot-pursuits because often in these hot pursuits, the car is stolen so the driver is not who the car is licensed to.

[DaiPlusPlus]

Hot pursuits are not primarily about identifying the driver either - it's about following the car so they know where it is so they can apprehend the driver. With a pursuit there's a panic, a high probability of the car being damaged or destroyed, and possible injury or death for the driver, the police involved, and of course, any pedestrians caught up in the way.

With a large enough ANPR network, there is no need to chase the car - so the driver won't necessarily panic or act irrationally to evade the police - leading to a higher probability of recovering the vehicle in good condition, and a successful non-dramatic apprehension of the suspects as it makes it easier to catch them by surprise, for example.

[Johnny555]

Right, it's not about identifying the driver, it's about apprehending the driver.

I hope I never live in a society where the driver of a stolen car can expect to be apprehended no matter where he stops because he'll be tracked by a camera network so ubiquitous that he can't escape it.

Because such a ubiquitous network means that all of my travels are being tracked and recorded too - which will likely include facial recognition, so there really will be no escaping Big Brother... and I don't trust any government with so much power and information over citizens to be benign.

[sharemywin]

The problem are:

- who has access and are they using it for official business?

- what if it's hacked?

- who is it shared with and who do they share it with after that? private companies for analysis?

[dsfyu404ed]

The FBI basically did this where they amassed hearsay about the important people in groups they didn't like then mailed anonymous letters to their partners, friends, family, etc. The term you should Google is "cointelpro".

IIRC recently there was a city in CA that mailed everyone who drove down a certain street a letter in an obvious colored envelope saying "Dear, Whoever, consider yourself informed that prostitutes go here, kthanksbye". This is a public road that people drive down to get from A to B.