ALPR - Advanced License Plate Recognition
 

ALPR in BC. Big brother is watching...and sometimes that may be a good thing.

This will give you an overview of some of the new technology the police will be using in the future.

The end is very enlightening.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j_On_1zRig

And so it goes...;)

Richard's $.02 :munchin

Random thoughts:

Just because it can be done, doesn't mean it should be done.

Most of the vehicles associated with the list of downloaded plate numbers mentioned in the video could be found by visiting the address of the registrant.

Sounds like they are trying to create a business opportunity for counterfeit plates.

A few Tennessee Highway Patrol cars have been fitted with the system, but it costs a lot for the hardware and the software, I think the officer said if was over $50,000, and so far it is still considered experimental.

The cameras are big, shoe box sized contraptions mounted on the four corners of the car.

This whole thing just game me a big case of the willies. This is less then one step from 100% tracking of us all in real time.

I read that back in the day the East Germans had the entire country wired up and tapped basically everything. But the limiting factor on the Stasi was it could not sort and analyze all the raw data that it collected. It seems that computers have made East Germany's dream of knowing what every citizen was up to a reality.

Counterfeit plates will not work, the computer has a picture of the car to work off of, so asking it to cross check color is easy.

We have that in our city and I'll leave it at that since I won't talk about our TTPs.

The Fayetteville Police Department here in NC has been using since late this summer.

http://www.bethebadge.com/pressrelea...d=932009122710

The objective of counterfeit plates is to remain "under the radar." If the plate is not in the daily data load then there is nothing to investigate. That is until computers and communications improve sufficiently to verify every plate with the color and make of auto to which it is registered as it is scanned.

Just because it can be done with technology, doesn't mean it should be done.

I fully understand the objective, but my limited understanding of computers leads me to believe that it would be easy to load in for all plates the expiration dates, registered owner and car color as a base data load out. From there it is easy to load daily updates of, stolen, open warrant, gun owner, libertarian voter, Buddhist, terror watch, etc. Pinching all expired tags will help fund more systems and before too long we are living in the "Minority Report" world Spielberg envisioned.

I am not sure that my deep fear of this is a tin foil moment, we all break some law every day and at times we never realize it, there are just too many laws on the books for any of us to live in 100% compliance with all of them.

Lucky for you, I am a computer professional. Downloading the entire data base of license plate information into many portable devices is an huge violation of security. The secure method of handling these issues is to query the master data base with license plate number, color and other information easily discerned by the remote device. Thus my reference to future computer power and communication capacity.

The fact that most systems today are not very secure, including the "no travel" list managed by our government, is beside the point. One should never, never, never be able to download the entire data base for any reason. Printing or distributing the "no travel list" in any way shape or form is beyond my ability to express my disgust. And these are the people who think they are professional enough to manage our health care systems data bases. Give me a break!

Did someone say "LPI?"
 

From my perspective, a beneficial feature is mentioned thirty four seconds into the video: running plates of parked vehicles. Self-referential link.

The ALPR data can be used to re-evaluate the efficacy of existing municipal codes that govern parking requirements. If parking requirements can be calibrated to actual parking behavior, less money will be spent building parking facilities that are vacant most of the time. As the cost of parking is invariably passed along to everyone (not just motorists), so will the net savings years down the line.

Just my repetitive two cents.:p

It is not clear to me how "this technology used in this was" is the only way to achieve those goals.

It is a very "slippery slope" to only focus on the benefits while waving away the costs and ignoring alternative approaches. This is the problem we have with almost everything our central government tries to do. Think Obamacare.

In my experience, motorists go nuts when license plate data are collected the old fashioned way, so I anticipate the controversy to surround advanced solutions.

IMO, getting municipalities to reconsider parking requirements requires data that are more robust and accurate. The best LPI data collectors in the industry would need the better part of a work day to collect the information ALPR devices could gather in one hour.

The labor intensive nature of current data collection techniques mean that skeptical (read: cynical) stakeholder can (and do) undermine serious discussions about revising parking requirements even though revised parking requirements would probably help their long term interests.

In regards to costs, please keep in mind that the cost of a parking space in 2006 averaged $16,500--exclusive of the cost of the land that space occupies. When you drive past plots of vacant land that stand empty year after year, there's a good chance the reason why it remains undeveloped is because while the owner may have great plans to build something, he or she simply cannot afford the additional costs needed to meet local parking requirements. (On the average, these requirements drive up construction costs 40%.)

Although I'm very critical of the mentality of the new urbanist/smartgrowth/green building collective that wants us to live our lives their way, I do agree that our love of the automobile poses significant strategic questions for America and topping the list is "Is that parking garage really necessary?" ALPR may be an invaluable tool in answering that question.

YMMV.

Which right is identifying publically displayed license plates and making correlations with previously collected data violating?