Thank you. Could we please change the title to something less clickbaity like "Police are tracking license plates via cameras, revealing lots of private info"?

I'm making comments like this disturbingly often...

Here is a startup idea, the "License Plate Club" ...

For $10 a month users register their license plate and state, then every month they get a printout of two random plates (at 75% size so as not to be confused with the car's real license plate) which you just stick to the side of your car doors. Of course being on the side of your car no police officer is going to think you're passing it off as your own plate, but every camera trained to detect and record license plates will add a 'hit' to their database right then and there. As more people join more license fuzzing data will be dumped into the databases and eventually all automatically collected license plate data will be useless without manually going through and verifying each sighting by hand, which will make it cost prohibitive.

Hell you could pay pedestrians to walk around with license plates as they go from intersection to intersection. That would be hilarious.

> Of course being on the side of your car no police officer is going to think you're passing it off as your own plate

How would you know this? In some jurisdictions you can be pulled over and cited for putting a government issued temporary license plate (i.e. one assigned to your vehicle) in the back window instead of the normal mounting spot. At the very least, fake license plates plastered all over a car would raise suspicion, especially if they return information about another vehicle. This is a bad idea all around.

Interesting thought. Haven't tested it of course. So in California at least some basic searching hasn't found any statute which prevents you from displaying additional plates on your car, there is this one: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/?1dmy&urile=wcm:path:/dmv_... which is the standard one. I've seen a number of trucks with multiple plates from different states, and of course the trucks from Mexico have both a Mexico plate and a US plate.

I'm curious if you got cited for this, what they might cite you as violating?

> I've seen a number of trucks with multiple plates from different states

All of which would be registered to that vehicle, which is not what you are talking about doing. Your entire premise is about displaying plates that aren't registered to your vehicle, which will at the very least get you pulled over in most jurisdictions, if not cited.

> I'm curious if you got cited for this, what they might cite you as violating?

In Georgia where I live, it would be this:

http://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2010/title-40/chapter-2/...

In short, you can't display a tag on your vehicle that isn't registered to it.

I get that what you are talking about doing is civil disobedience, and I'm not faulting you for that. I'm not a fan of automated license plate readers myself, or more specifically the lack of oversight given that it's usually operated by third party, for-profit companies. I'm just pointing out the flaws in your plan, based on what I know of the law (and I'm not a lawyer, just a former law enforcement staff member).

That statute is similar to the California one in that it says you have to show a valid plate for your vehicle. And like the California statute is notionally silent on the idea of making a plate visible on your vehicle that is in addition to your completely legal plates, and shown in such a way that it does not imply it is the vehicles registration plate.

For the purposes of the experiment I bet you could wrap it in a frame that says "this is not the registration plate for this car" in easy to read letters.

Clearly the safer bet would be enlisting pedestrians or cyclists as the law is silent on either having a car plate visible while they are near street cameras and passing patrol cars.

> is notionally silent on the idea of making a plate visible on your vehicle that is in addition to your completely legal plates

No, it's pretty clear and straightforward:

"(a) Except as otherwise provided in this chapter, it shall be unlawful:

...

(3) To buy, receive, use, or possess for use on a motor vehicle any license plate not issued for use on such motor vehicle"

But again that's Georgia law, so by all means go ahead and plaster your car with fake license plates and post back here with the results. You might indeed not get a second glance from your local law enforcement. And if you end up causing problems for the ALPRs employed by your local government, all the better. :)

Thanks, I'm going to have to lookup the case law on that one to see if people have ever contested of being in violation of having an additional plate visible on their car.

Having multiple license plates displayed is generally prohibited. As I found out when I had not had time to change my plate after it expired: I had the old one in the usual location, and the new one in the rear window. Got pulled over for it, but got only a warning.

Which makes perfect sense to me. Not sure how you thought that would be acceptable.

But then, I am of the unpopular opinion that every car should be tracked, they are far too dangerous, and cause far too many accidents for them not to be.

You want to murder someone and get away with it in our society, the best chance you have is killing them with your car.

Same-ish experience (in DE) -- I hadn't taken down my temporary plate from my window and had my real one. Meter-cop walking by offered to throw it out for me and told me I couldn't have both.

If you don't mind me asking, what jurisdiction was this?

> For $10 a month users register their license plate and state, then every month they get a printout of two random plates (at 75% size so as not to be confused with the car's real license plate) which you just stick to the side of your car doors.

This is probably illegal in most jurisdictions. For instance, it is definitely illegal in California. Standard licenses plates are 12"x6". 75% size is 9"x4.5". California Regulations (13 CCR Sec. 150.02) requires "facsimile or decorative" plates to be smaller than 9"x3" or larger than 15"x9".

Replying as breadcrumbs to a fantastic idea.

Oh I assumed the piece of data was IMSI. Which IMO is far worse as you're not always in public.

Those Cessna planes flying all over American cities can collect far more in a single day than all police cars on patrol can: http://www.startribune.com/nighttime-flight-circles-low-over...

I wonder who hosts the data for them? Cops aren't usually this "advanced" in surveillance unless I'm wrong?

Someone I know works for a company in Florida that runs the servers and sells the license plate cameras to the police. One of many companies I presume.

At least it's not the NSA then.

If NSA were merely voyeurs they'd be much less troubling. The main problem with them, for Americans anyway, is that they transfer the results of their surveillance to law enforcement, typically in a fashion that is contrary to the Constitution and other laws of the nation. The scenario described here just cuts out the middleman, and as there was no mention of warrants or reasonable search it's dubious whether this meets a Constitutional standard either.

Local police can charge you with crimes, restrict your movement (pull you over when you're trying to drive somewhere), throw you in jail, knock down your door at night and question you.

NSA doesn't have any of these powers.

Not to mention they can also kill you with minor consequences.

Source?

Really?

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/fatal-police-shooting...

Thanks

Ex-NSA personnel starting companies, some using NSA-backed VC funding, with promises of NSA and other Gov and LEA buyers. So, totally not NSA.

More info from this researcher on this topic here:

https://www.aclu.org/blog/police-documents-license-plate-sca...

[2013]