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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 8:53 pm
Time: 8:53 pm
Results for automatic number plate recognition (u.s.)
2 results foundAuthor: American Civil Liberties Union Title: You Are Being Tracked: How License Plate Readers Are Being Used to Record Americans' Movements Summary: If you’ve never seen an automatic license plate reader, it’s probably because you didn’t know what to look for. The devices have been proliferating around the country at worrying speed. Mounted on patrol cars or placed on bridges or overpasses, license plate readers combine high-speed cameras that capture photographs of every passing license plate with software that analyzes those photographs to identify the plate number. License plate reader systems typically check each plate number against “hot lists” of plates that have been uploaded to the system and provide an instant alert to a law enforcement agent when a match or “hit” appears. License plate readers would pose few civil liberties risks if they only checked plates against hot lists and these hot lists were implemented soundly. But these systems are configured to store the photograph, the license plate number, and the date, time, and location where all vehicles are seen — not just the data of vehicles that generate hits. All of this information is being placed into databases, and is sometimes pooled into regional sharing systems. As a result, enormous databases of motorists’ location information are being created. All too frequently, these data are retained permanently and shared widely with few or no restrictions on how they can be used. The implementation of automatic license plate readers poses serious privacy and other civil liberties threats. More and more cameras, longer retention periods, and widespread sharing allow law enforcement agents to assemble the individual puzzle pieces of where we have been over time into a single, high-resolution image of our lives. The knowledge that one is subject to constant monitoring can chill the exercise of our cherished rights to free speech and association. Databases of license plate reader information create opportunities for institutional abuse, such as using them to identify protest attendees merely because these individuals have exercised their First Amendment-protected right to free speech. If not properly secured, license plate reader databases open the door to abusive tracking, enabling anyone with access to pry into the lives of his boss, his exwife, or his romantic, political, or workplace rivals. In July 2012, American Civil Liberties Union affiliates in 38 states and Washington, D.C., sent 587 public records act requests to local police departments and state agencies to obtain information on how these agencies use license plate readers. We also filed requests with the U.S. Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Transportation to learn how the federal government has used grants to encourage the widespread adoption of license plate readers, as well as how it is using the technology itself. We received over 26,000 pages of documents from the law enforcement agencies that responded to our requests, about their policies, procedures, and practices for using license plate readers. This report provides an overview of what we have learned about license plate readers: what their capabilities are, how they are being used, and why they raise privacy issues of critical importance. We close by offering specific recommendations designed to allow law enforcement agencies to use license plate readers for legitimate purposes without subjecting Americans to the permanent recording of their every movement. Details: New York: ACLU, 2013. 37p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 18, 2013 at: http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/071613-aclu-alprreport-opt-v05.pdf Year: 2013 Country: United States URL: http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/071613-aclu-alprreport-opt-v05.pdf Shelf Number: 129438 Keywords: Automatic Number Plate Recognition (U.S.)License Place Recognition SystemPolice SurveillancePrivacy |
Author: Gierlack, Keith Title: License Plate Readers for Law Enforcement: Opportunities and Obstacles Summary: Since the use of license plate reader (LPR) technology is relatively new in the United States, opportunities and obstacles in its use in law enforcement are still under exploration. As the technology spreads, however, law-enforcement agencies, particularly those considering investing in an LPR system and other organizations focused on the information technology needs of law enforcement, may find the material in this report helpful. It provides an in-depth examination of the range of ways in which license plate scanners are used; the benefits and limits of LPR systems; and emerging practices for system operation. The RAND Corporation's research approach, exploratory interviews with law-enforcement personnel, sought to gather information not just from police officers but also from the diverse people responsible for installing, maintaining, and operating the systems. This method allowed RAND to thoroughly characterize and examine license plate scanner issues to add to the knowledge base. The interviews explored salient issues concerning system implementation, funding, case uses, field procedures, technology issues, data retention policies, and privacy concerns. RAND believes these findings overall will add value to the discussion on this technology's utility. Details: Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2014. 124p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 7, 2014 at: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR400/RR467/RAND_RR467.pdf Year: 2014 Country: United States URL: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR400/RR467/RAND_RR467.pdf Shelf Number: 132623 Keywords: Automatic Number Plate Recognition (U.S.)License Place Recognition SystemPolice SurveillancePolice TechnologyPrivacy |