License plate readers: A useful tool for police comes with privacy concerns
By Allison Klein and Josh White,
An armed robber burst into a Northeast Washington market, scuffled with the cashier, and then shot him and the clerk’s father, who also owned the store. The killer sped off in a silver Pontiac, but a witness was able to write down the license plate number.Police figured out the name of the suspect very quickly. But locating and arresting him took a little-known investigative tool: a vast system that tracks the comings and goings of anyone driving around the District.
Scores of cameras across the city capture 1,800 images a minute and download the information into a rapidly expanding archive that can pinpoint people’s movements all over town.
Police entered the suspect’s license plate number into that database and learned that the Pontiac was on a street in Southeast. Police soon arrested Christian Taylor, who had been staying at a friend’s home, and charged him with two counts of first-degree murder. His trial is set for January.
More than 250 cameras in the District and its suburbs scan license plates in real time, helping police pinpoint stolen cars and fleeing killers. But the program quietly has expanded beyond what anyone had imagined even a few years ago.
With virtually no public debate, police agencies have begun storing the information from the cameras, building databases that document the travels of millions of vehicles.
Read the rest of this shit here.
Watch he TV show called *Person of Interest*... This shit is being shined on like it's a TV show only, it's NOT...
ReplyDeleteThe potential for abuse by government agencies is scarey.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad the scumbag was caught and don't object to the use of these cameras, but legal limits need to be placed on their use
Paul in Texas
Hey, you can get an aerosol spray product that you put on your plates that renders them unreadable to vidcams AND IR cams.
ReplyDeletegoole it.
"Car and Driver" just had an article about these systems. They can scan the plates from in front of, and to the sides, of the squad unit. Of, course, the information is only used to see if there's a match in the database of outstanding warrants.....yeah, right.
ReplyDeleteAnd those sprays don't work. Several car magazines (and MythBusters) tested them, and they only thing they do is lighten your wallet.