It's Time to Talk About Privacy and License-Plate Readers (Again)

When you're driving on a public road, your license plate is public information. You could legally sit on your front porch and write down the plate numbers of every car that drives by, then put all of that information into a spreadsheet and track when people leave for work and who gets pizza delivered every Tuesday.

License Plate Reader (LPR) data can paint an intimate portrait of a driver's life and even chill First Amendment protected activity. The technology can also be used to target drivers who visit sensitive places such as health centers, immigration clinics, gun shops, union halls, protests, or centers of religious worship.

Doesn’t seem like such a big deal, does it? Now consider that as long as 10 years ago, one private vendor of the scanners, Vigilant Solutions, already had a database of 450 million plate scans and was adding 35 million new plates per month.

No doubt LPR’s help catch criminals, but they also keep track of where you're going and when, and there are few rules limiting how data is used, and drivers don’t have a choice.

To get involved and learn more contact the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Selected excerpt(s) and linked article courtesy of Sebastian Blanco, Car & Driver