License Plate Tracking for the Average Citizen

Wired News is reporting that big-brother license plate tracking systems may soon be available to the average citizen. Privacy advocates, however, worry that personal information and associated movement could be used inappropriately by marketing companies. From the article: "Bucholz, who designed some of the first mobile license plate reading, or LPR, equipment, gave a presentation at the 2006 National Institute of Justice conference here last week laying out a vision of the future in which LPR does everything from helping insurance companies find missing cars to letting retail chains chart customer migrations. It could also let a nosy citizen with enough cash find out if the mayor is having an affair, he says."

Stalkers' Boon

[anagama]

And for stalkers out there, make it easy to establish a victims common route. I can't see how finding a stolen car here and there could possibly outweigh the negative implications of this technology.

Re:Stalkers' Boon

[rot26]

won't be made readily available to the general public

Are you under the impression that something must be "made" readily available to the general public for it to be readily available to the general public?

It's disturbing enough for it to be available to the general non-public.

And it gets worse.

[khasim]

All it would take is for someone to start offering info on license plates for price. Buy a couple of these and just cruise around, collecting plates and GPS coordinates (with a date/time stamp).

See a cute girl in a bar? Just get her plate number when she leaves. The cough up the cash and you can find where her car is normally seen. Like where she lives and where she works.

You know, I'd rather take my chances that my car won't be recovered (most of them are stolen for "joy rides" anyway and the most of the rest are chopped) or that someone without insurance will crash into me.

And yes, once the technology is available, SOMEONE will sell the info it gathers.

Re:This is damned good stuff

[plague3106]

Sorry, but you're wrong. It will be illegal for the average citizen to track government officals like this. National security and all. Read Orwell to see what a survelance society is like.

Or if....

[Itninja]

"The next step is connecting the technology to databases that will tell cops whether a sexual offender has failed to register in the state or is loitering too close to a school, or whether a driver has an outstanding warrant. It could also snag you if you're uninsured, if your license expired last week or even if your library books are overdue."

...or if members of your church started going to the local mosque. Or if your employees started shopping at the competition. Or if a pastor spent a little too time consoling the local widows....

Re:Public places are ... public

[kwerle]

Up until now though, it wasn't possible to track you throughout the city with a device on your car.

Sigh. A camera with OCR software isn't that big an idea. The notion that it wasn't possible is a little naiive - as is the idea that this is the first time it's happened.

This is the first time it's been AVAILABLE to you and me for cheap.

I'm sure you'd be quite annoyed if someone was following you around all day. This is no different. People may see I go to the grocery store, but I don't feel like anyone has the right to record that and make it known to everyone.

Here in the US, people have the freedom (in general) to move in public and to speak. There are stalking laws, and all that, but in general anyone could have done that at any time. The truth is that nobody actually cares when you go to the grocers - except the grocer. And they track you with discount cards. If there was reliable, cheap facial imaging software, they'd use that.

Really, the whole notion that this is new and frightening is a little silly. In them olden days, you went to the same grocer all the time, got served by the same person, maybe kept a tab and paid it off monthly, and everyone thought it was handy that the grocer knew what you needed. Yeah, they weren't owned by a big company, but the big company isn't any more frightening for not having a face.

Do you think the Mayor's data will be there?

[maillemaker]

>But when things like this become available to the average joe,
>there's will be a lot more people interested in where the mayor's
>car goes than the other way round.

I'm sure the people in power will make sure that certain license plates are exempted from being displayed.

Steve

I agree

[x2A]

Without marketing information, we blanket-market... that is, put flyers/posters, web banners, use pay-per-clicks etc, *everywhere*. It's a gamble, and most people who see the ads aren't going to be interested in them, but it's all you can do.

However, with better marketing information, we cut out all the places we know people aren't going to be interested. The result: less pointless adverts everywhere.

I wouldn't get car insurance circulars through my door, millions of pizza delivery ads, or loads v14gr4 spam, -if only- they knew I wasn't interested in them.

Proper marketing information helps *all parties involved*. Unfortunately so many people have a deluded sense of grandure and think "omg they're watching *me*" like there's someone with a telescope watching and giggling everytime you fart. No company has that much time! It's usually done statistically.

Re:Big brother here we come!

[CreatureComfort]

Yeah, this is great. Now I'll be able to track down the information on that little mf'r that cut me off on the freeway this morning and key his car. Hey, and how about that hot blonde number I saw at the red light? I'm sure she wouldn't mind me showing up at her home or job and hitting on her. And if she turns me down, well, I know where she lives. I know, let's reverse this and make it real time! Then I can track where the owners of a house are while I "browse" through their belongings, and get warning when they get within 5 miles.

Isn't this fun? I bet I could come up with great uses for this tech all day long.

Re:Big brother here we come!

[hcob$]

Oh, so you mean I just need to put an IR filter over my tag? Since we can't SEE IR with our eyes, we just have a high-pass light filter on our tags such that police can view them with their eyes, but not this pesky tomato-suace spy cam. 1.) Post SCARY article about possible big brother tracking you everywhere 2.) Market ir filters for tags... 3.) Charge 4x market value to /.TFHC (slashdot tin foil hats club) 4.) Profit~!!!!

Re:Big brother here we come!

[voice_of_all_reason]

They just drive around doing their normal rigamarole, and then the little beeper goes off and says "See that car up there? It was reported stolen this morning".

Um, then what? The police get to just confiscate your car because some "magic box" says so?

Re:Big brother here we come!

[SydShamino]

The following is SARCASTIC JEST meant to show how this can be abused:

"Dude, I'm just gonna wire this up outside of the local adult video store, and post a real-time list of people who visit, with their name and address. I could probably make this a for-profit service, where folks sign up their spouses' tags and I message them when they visit. Or I can link it to public official records, and snap a photo or video if a politician's car shows up."

Re:Not that bad.

[markana]

That's one extra stop every time that particular car is scanned. I bet it's easier to get off the No-Fly list than it is to get a mistaken entry removed from the NCIC. Stories abound of people being arrested over and over on the same erroneous warrants. Isn't this going to be fun...

Re:Not that bad.

[El Torico]

...the enhanced system is no more prone to false positives than the system of calling in to dispatch ...

I agree, it isn't, but now the Police can make mistakes at a much higher rate. As they say in IT, it has a "scaling problem". Now, put it in the hands of private citizens and corporations too, and there will be a lot of complications since their databases probably won't be any less error prone.