> This is a country where when they installed license plate scanners on highways they accompanied them with large screens that show the plate that was just scanned.

This is done in France when it catches you driving too fast. "ABC 123" you're going too fast! It's a bit jarring your plate up on a screen so it works kind of well against speeding. They don't need to store your plate to use this feature.

Of course plates are being scanned (and probably stored) all over the place now (toll booths, big roads in & out of the cities), not denying that.

In our case its not shaming you for speeding or anything specific, it just displays every plate that it scans to advertise the scanner.

Also in a not very surprising turn of events, a lot of the screens just show a fixed plate these days which makes you wonder which component broke (is it the screen, or the scanner?)