[crypt1d]

I really, really want to say that I think this technology is a bad idea. But I don't. I don't think that the technology is the problem here, as Digital Recognition said they are not _technically_ invading privacy since the license plates are available for everyone to see. And if you outlaw it, whats stopping a few crooks organizing their own underground data collection and selling the stuff on a black market? Rather, I'd prefer to see a different way of "licensing" cars. Maybe some kind of RFID chip that can only be read by law enforcement? I know its quite unlikely something like this will ever happen, but anyway.

[hrjet]

> I'd prefer to see a different way of "licensing" cars.

How about an LCD screen that shows a captcha image of the license number? The captcha image can be regenerated after a set interval, for example, a day.

Edit: This would have the benefit that humans can still read it, but making it difficult for OCR.

[talmand]

Well, consider that a government agency would still have to keep a database of what captcha tags were assigned to you on any given day at any given time, then it wouldn't be difficult to tie the two together. At that point you don't need to decipher the captcha, just compare pixels.

[gnerd]

Weren't modern license plates made the way they are to aid automatic (or human) detection? For instance, traffic cameras, automated scanning from traffic police to make sure your car is insured or even your elderly neighbour writing down a license plate late at night after seeing a car speed away from a possible hit-and-run.