How License Plate Readers Became Something Much Bigger

So it's been a while since I shared about ALPR cameras for the first time on this show.

That episode and the social media that followed went over really well because people want to know about the cameras that are popping up in their communities.

For those of you who don't know, an ALPR camera grabs images of a car's license plate and then logs them.

Simplistically speaking, it just logs your license plate as you drive by it.

This is not a new technology.

It's been around for a while, but the technology is expanding rapidly.

It's changed a lot since the last time I shared about it on this show.

Companies like Motorola, Flock Safety, and Axon make up the bulk of these cameras in the U.S.

They can be mounted on police cars, tow trucks, parking enforcement vehicles, light poles, and then the classic standalone pole.

There are good things about these cameras that provide law enforcement with timely information to save lives.

I also see some privacy concerns as well.

So today I'm going to talk about the current state of these cameras and where things are going in the future.

But more specifically, I want to try to answer a question that just kept coming to mind as I was preparing for this episode.

And that is, at what point does a license plate reader stop being a license plate reader? And also, understand in this episode, this is my opinion.

Not everything I share should be taken as a strict fact here.

These are my thoughts on what I see going on around me and how this might affect our families.

Now, many people hear the phrase license plate reader and they imagine a camera that just reads a license plate, notes that, and then just sticks it in a database somewhere, no big deal.

But that's not the only thing that's happening.

These systems often capture an image and a lot more than a license plate.

They capture the entire vehicle and what's going on around it.

So you're going to get the make, the model, the color, the condition of the vehicle, roof racks, cargo, bumper stickers, and in some cases, even the occupants inside the vehicle.

Attorney Stephanie Lindsey has discovered how these images are increasingly valuable in legal proceedings, not because of the plate itself, but because of everything else that's visible in the image.

Who was driving? Was there somebody in the passenger seat? Where the vehicle was? What direction it was traveling? And what was happening in that moment? These images become snapshots in time that no one consented to.

And these snapshots can become evidence.

That realization changed how I think about these systems because these cameras see a lot more than just a license plate.