[jstarfish]

A former employer of mine opted to install ALPR cameras at the entrances to/from the office park. It would establish a direct feed to the local police as to who was entering the property at any given time.

I questioned why this was necessary and received a vague hypothetical about domestic abusers/deranged exes harassing employees/kidnapping suspects entering the property, with no clear indication as to how we'd flag such individuals without them having active warrants out.

The only practical use case was perhaps catching vehicles with active Amber Alerts out that might try to hide out on the property.

So the police basically got free intel from us, and we received no incentives to install or maintain such equipment from them.

[dahdum]

It's not meant to stop vehicles in real time, but that data can be used to solve break-ins (identify all new vehicles and narrow down), establish proof of harassment / breaking of a restraining order, etc..

So could cell phone records, but ALPR is simpler and fewer legal concerns. As a business owner, there's little downside, and most of the employees would have been caught on ALPR, toll booths, cell phone tracking, and other tracking a dozen times on their way to work already.

I don't really like that location data is near-public information nowadays, but I don't see it getting any better.