Florida Town To Record All Drivers
from the you-have-no-privacy-anywhere dept
A town in Florida has decided that you don't need any privacy if you dare to drive through their town. They're setting up a system of cameras that will take photos of license plates and drivers of all cars and record that info in a database. The database will also cross-check the license plate to see if you happen to be driving a stolen car, and alert the police immediately. They will also use the system to pinpoint who drove where at what time when investigating robberies. The police chief in charge of the program shrugs off any privacy concerns, noting that the roads are public so people should "have no expectation of privacy." Next thing you know, they'll just put GPS chips in everyone so that they know where everyone is at all times.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
No Subject Given
Privacy advocates and the courts would have a field day with that one. Chips being implanted in people to know where they are? I don't see that happening here. As far as cameras go though, you don't seem to mind it when the cameras are not all tied together. They say the average person spends six hours a day on film being recorded by security cameras. We don't even think about that. How is this any different? And if you're not stealing people's shit or driving around in a stolen car with stolen plates (you should go to jail for being stupid in that case) then what do you have to worry about? Ever stop to think that something like this might mean that you don't get mugged at three in the morning? Or that the guy who would have stolen your car can't because he was already cought and thrown in prison where he belings?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Biostat revolution
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: No Subject Given
Anyway, I don't think the issue is the camera so much as the fact that it's being recorded in a database. That seems a bit excessive. You can track someone if they're suspected of a crime, but tracking all the people all the time seems to go a bit far.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Legal?
He told me that they can't do that for the same reason they can't sit with their radar guns on 24/7 - it violates our civil rights. According to him, the police have to believe you are speeding before clocking you with their radar gun, just as they have to believe you have broken some law before they can run your plates or confirm your ID. The law can be as simple as a broken tail light, improper lane changes, failure to signal, etc., but there has to a REASON for them to check you out.
If the system worked in such a way that it checked the license plate number, saw no matches in the system (i.e., not stolen) it would then flush the number out of the system, I don't see a problem with it - maybe even put a 24 hour FIFO buffer on it.
If however it is really storing all the information into a database forever then we as citizens need to be concerned as there is no reason for the police to have this and once they do there is nothing to prevent its misuse and abuse.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
plates
And now, of course, central London has a similar system via the ‘congestion charge zone’ All vehicles are tracked down to a few hundred metres.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
fake license plates
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: fake license plates
[ link to this | view in thread ]
This is America ? ? ?
Guilty ... till proven innocent.
Zero Tolerance.
It's getting to be a bitch to be human ...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: This is America ? ? ?
Just seems like a huge waste of time.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: This is America ? ? ?
those who give up liberty in search of security deserve neither
it is a sick joke how people welcome these new forms of control
ppsssttt hey you.. ya the one who thinks this type of thing is ok.. ya know.. for the children or whatever
[ link to this | view in thread ]