When the ACLU released a report Wednesday describing widespread license plate scanning of cars on America's roadways, everyone from privacy advocates to Sunday drivers felt their basic rights of anonymity further slip away. First our data packets, and now our license plates? Isn't anything safe from the prying eyes of the government?
But when you look at how plate scanning is being used at the street level, it's easy to understand the zeal with which police have adopted it. The practice may not appeal to the defenders of civil liberties—we'll get to them soon—but the fact remains that license plates are visible to the public at large, and law enforcement say plate scanning directly benefits anyone who owns a car, and wants to keep it.
Marc Hinch, who is part of a stolen car recovery task force in Oakland, California, uses license plate scanning every day to hunt down hot cars in one of the nation's busiest crime zones.
EFFPlate scanning cameras can be installed inconspicuously on the tops of police cruisers.
"Every day, they put out a list of every stolen car, and send that out to us on task forces," Hinch says. "We'll get a report that says, 'These stolen cars were seen in your area' with a Google map linked."
EFF
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