I think it's fine, if you're going that fast, you can't be anonymous. Airplanes aren't, missiles sure as shit aren't, the whole atmosphere is under surveillance for anything larger than a baseball.
The capabilities that the military/government pretend to have are VERY different than the capabilities they actually have.
The tracking probably shouldn't extend to customer marketing uses, but the fact that VINs tie to plates tie to drivers' licenses is a system built out of hard decades of experience on the kind of damage people can do if the system isn't tracked and audited.
How does this data prevent either of those things?
The key is part of the sentence is tracked and audited. It helps to make people whole after-the-fact and minimize repeat harm.
To give a few concrete examples: commit a crime while operating a car? Your plate is, in modern times, now in the databases of multiple police precincts. You will now find it difficult to operate on public roads without getting pulled over (which also impinges on your ability to easily flee from the scene of the crime). Steal a whole car and ditch or replace the plate? Your VIN is now flagged stolen, so good luck getting any legit operator to do work on that car. Crash a car and try to repair it and re-sell it with a damaged frame? Again, the VIN is logged if you had any professional do major repairs on the car. And if the cops pull you over on a public road and you aren't licensed to operate a vehicle on a public road... Oh boy, hope you didn't have plans this week.
Your car gets stolen, you report the VIN and the plate to the police, they get a warrant. No Database required.
Your parent was talking about a load of historical data that's available via your VIN number.
> History of fines tied to person or vehicle. Dealerships and insurance have records tied to the VIN. Who financed loans for how much...
If that's all true, that's absurd. All that is required for what you're talking about is, at best, a database of current owners.
I made a big fuss about it at every opportunity and is one of the biggest reasons I left.
In Pennsylvania for example, https://pennsylvania.staterecords.org/licenseplate
There’s a form to fill out. Looking at the instructions it’s E or F, so in theory if you can fulfill one of the reasons in F, I suppose you don’t need the owners information.
Outside of the US, you can also request similar information - Ontario for example.
> Vehicle records ordered online do not contain information about current odometer readings, collision information, driver’s licence numbers, owner names or personal address information.
It says it contains:
Vehicle description
Plate number of current plate attached to the specified vehicle and all other previously attached plates
Date(s) the vehicle was registered to each registrant
Vehicle status
The link to the exact area:
https://www.jtips.mto.gov.on.ca/jtips/orderPlSearchRecOwner....
After that, with the information you get about the current owner, you may be able to submit the paper form for one of the driver history requests that do include addresses.
https://forms.mgcs.gov.on.ca/en/dataset/023-sr-lc-112
I don’t live in Canada, nor do I really have a solid understanding, but it seems like for ~$40 and some time you might be able to obtain a lot of information from a plate.
They do say you need to be a business / approved entity, however, it looks like you could request it as the person as an uncertified record online.
http://www.ontario.ca/page/get-driving-record
While I’m sure that’s illegal, it doesn’t seem like it would actually stop someone who started at the plate, and wanted to get to name and address.
And/or
It does seem like you need the current address, but, you could probably abuse the system to confirm an address by seeing if your order is cancelled or not.
Once you have name and date of birth, you can probably begin to track most people down.
Edit: so it wouldn’t work quite that easily, you can get to name, but I confused license and permit on the one form. So barring trying the paper form for a 3 year check without the licence number, I’m not sure you can get beyond name from the plate.
And even if I did I don't exactly want to lead a trail of breadcrumbs straight to a title floating operation.
Plus the whole thing is highly conspiratorial, like you talk about. Getting you to the bargaining table ie into the dealership. Then they work you, edmunds.com has an article about all the shitty little defeating tactics car dealerships do, at the direct verbal instructions of the dealership owner, and him directly under orders from the car companies.
Plus it's oil, American soldiers die every day for that oil in the Middle East, and many local people with them. It's no joke, in fact one time a military man I knew told me he just drove slower on the highway, like 30 mph under the limit, strictly because that oil is American blood, and you use much less driving slower to reach the same place. Like the lower speed limits of the 70's, but under his own volition.
In WW2, there was propaganda (not being negative, I don't consider it a negative thing, means words to be spread, spread the word) saying if you drive alone, you're driving with Hitler. Later, if you drive alone, you're driving with terrorists. There would be no war, at all, in the whole Middle East if it weren't about oil exploitation. That's the whole deal. Israel a little bit, but oil all the way. The Middle East had, up until I think 1947, including Iran, a very high opinion of America, blue jeans rock and roll, pizza, inventions, California, Cadillacs, what's not to love. Then came the Israeli War of Independence, then grossest of all the coup in Iran in 1953 which was just disgusting, and things changed very quickly.
We could dig it up in the US, we were a net exporter under the Trump administration. We just decided to dig it up a ocean away and use bunker fuel to bring it to us. Apparently for environmentalism, it's still unclear how that is better.
The numbers have to square up. That's critical. And the reasoning must be sound, no in-befores (inb4's) or soundbite explanations or silencing critics, in fact let the judge and jury decide for the most part, and if you are opposed, become a juror for the next time around.
It just doesn't stop.