Re:DHS to Launch Nationwide License Plate Reader Program
by tracker1 on Tuesday April 07, 2015 @03:30PM
(#9336514)
Or, make a warrant required, and only enable collection of data where a proper warrant for a specific plate is in place start collection, in a granularity of N-days (being as few as one and as many as say 30, without another warrant).
The system should be unable (by design) to store information on plates without warrant.. as you mention, in terms of a ping... No historical logging of data outside that scope.
Cops are able to start following someone... they aren't able to go back in time and start following someone three weeks ago.
Re:DHS to Launch Nationwide License Plate Reader Program
by mahyarm on Tuesday April 07, 2015 @07:19PM
(#9337825)
That design is way too easy to switch into full recording mode. It feels like as much of a solution that DRM is.
Re:DHS to Launch Nationwide License Plate Reader Program
by tracker1 on Wednesday April 08, 2015 @12:40PM
(#9342007)
True... and barring fictional "investigations" could be challenged in court. The problem is, we're rapidly reaching a point close to 1984 in terms of privacy (or lack of).
Re:DHS to Launch Nationwide License Plate Reader Program
by rhino369 on Tuesday April 07, 2015 @07:32PM
(#9337875)
If I were going to craft such an amendment, I'd probably make a distinction between active monitoring and passive monitoring and require reasonable suspicion to switch to active.
If I go shoot up a theatre, the police would allowed to put an active trace on me and query their database.
They wouldn't be allowed to just search for drug users by investigating who goes near drug corners.
I would feel better about this if the license plate readers simply pinged law enforcement on a real-time match. The storage and potential data mining aspects are where it crosses the line. Stasi stuff there.