ALPR - Advanced License Plate Recognition

[Richard]

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

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.

[CSB]

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.

[Sten]

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.

[18C4V]

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

[Dan]

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

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

[Razor]

Originally Posted by Brush Okie

...what many do not realize it also means having to put up with restricting the government from doing many things that could cut back on crime because it would cut back on everyones rights.

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

Originally Posted by Sten

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.

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.

[Sten]

Originally Posted by HowardCohodas

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.