
EFF Wins Access to License Plate Reader Data to Study Law Enforcement Use - slowhand09
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/victory-eff-wins-access-license-plate-reader-data-study-how-law-enforcement-uses
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dpflan
"The California Supreme Court ruling has significance beyond the ALPR case. It
set a groundbreaking precedent that mass, indiscriminate data collection by
the police can’t be withheld just because the information may contain some
data related to criminal investigations."

Good. What other systems would be targeted next by the EFF? Facial recognition
systems?

~~~
duxup
Legally it doesn't make much sense to gather a ton of data and say "well
something might be in there" and now nobody ever sees it.

Pretty easy to just make big buckets of data nobody ever sees...

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stjohnswarts
When you use the Constitution as a base line as to what it's logical for the
government to do, then it's absolutely ridiculous to allow it. The only one
who can argue otherwise are lawyers who represent cops/FBI/NSA whose sole
purpose is to do the best job they can do, which obviously means no limits on
their power. It's up to citizens to vote in law makers who actually represent
our interests, the CIA/FBI/cops will only ever stick up for what is in their
best interests. That swearing to protect the Constitution is really just a
formality and not really applied to their daily activities.

~~~
windexh8er
They all take the oath to to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution
of the United States". It would be great if those agents of the government
were held accountable to that oath, and if found guilty of otherwise face
appropriate repercussions

~~~
wallace_f
Orwell wrote:

>when I see an actual flesh-and-blood worker in conflict with his natural
enemy, the policeman, I do not have to ask myself which side I am on

~~~
turk73
Orwell was a communist, though. It sort of confuses me what he meant by all
that. Did he not understand that the kind of mistreatment of humanity was what
he supported? I have read his memoirs and articles, I know he was a smart guy
who took big chances in Spain and places. I just don't understand why such
intelligent people support big, top-down, collectivist structures.

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csense
Four years ago in this case, the LA police said that _all cars in Los Angeles_
are under investigation. [1]

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7434448](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7434448)

~~~
jumpingmice
That is not really inconsistent with the principle of implied consent for
drivers. Driving is dangerous and destructive and not a natural right. Cars
_should_ be under suspicion at all times, moving or parked.

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AnthonyMouse
Implied consent for drivers is from a bygone era when cars were not the
dominant mode of transportation. Mass transit in LA (and most of the rest of
the United States) is a woefully inadequate alternative. You can't consent to
something when there is reasonably no other choice.

Your argument would only hold water in the future if self-driving cars become
widespread _and_ it isn't necessary to display a number plate on a car without
a human driver, thereby giving people a reasonable transportation alternative
that allows for anonymous freedom of movement. Until then, the government
should not be able to simultaneously mandate number plates and use them for
mass surveillance.

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jumpingmice
Implied consent passed in California in 1998.

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AnthonyMouse
The 1998 California legislature was full of people who were adults before the
interstate highway system was built. And the Patriot Act was passed in 2001;
doesn't mean the sentiment doesn't date to the McCarthy era.

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duxup
There's a lot of digital advocacy and letter writing out there that sometimes
has me all "Man does anyone do anything that produces a result?". I'm pretty
proud to support the EFF who seriously puts in a lot of work to actually do
things that seem like they matter as far as the digital age goes (not sure
we're calling it that anymore).

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trevyn
I’m super-curious how Mars will be governed.

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dontbenebby
There's a Playstation 2 FPS that focuses on a miner uprising on Mars (with
destroyable walls) that gamed this out:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Faction_(video_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Faction_\(video_game\))

>Red Faction takes place on Mars around the year 2075. Earth's minerals are
being depleted and humans need more of them to survive. The vast Ultor
Corporation runs the mining operation on Mars. The living conditions are
deplorable, human rights for the miners are few, and a disease called "The
Plague" is running rampant throughout the colony with no known antidote
available—predominantly within the confines of the mine complex. Parker, a
downtrodden miner, came to Mars to make a new start in his life—taken in by
the promises and advantages Ultor has to offer in the mines of Mars. After a
routine day in the mine with the typical aggression toward miners and cramped
living conditions and poor nutrition, he witnesses the spark that starts a
rebellion when a security guard abuses a miner at the end of his shift and
heartlessly kills him.[5] Parker takes up arms, with the help of Hendrix, a
rebellious Ultor security technician who guides Parker through the complex.

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icebraining
Yeah, but that's just a common story (repeated throughout history), that
happens to take place on Mars, just like it happened on Earth. There's nothing
in it that explores the fact that they are on a different planet.

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rileymat2
>The data, which has been deidentified to protect drivers’ privacy, will allow
EFF and ACLU SoCal to learn how the agencies are using automated license plate
reader (ALPR) systems throughout the city and county of Los Angeles and
educate the public on the privacy risks posed by this intrusive technology.

If the data tells you that much, which it sounds like it does, how hard is it
to figure out identities from the patterns?

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shakna
De-anonymising data is not especially difficult. [0][1] Combine it with
another database or two and you'll have a high degree of confidence you know
who did what, where and when.

[0] [http://digital.law.washington.edu/dspace-
law/bitstream/handl...](http://digital.law.washington.edu/dspace-
law/bitstream/handle/1773.1/417/vol5_no1_art3.pdf)

[1] [https://news.mit.edu/2013/how-hard-it-de-anonymize-
cellphone...](https://news.mit.edu/2013/how-hard-it-de-anonymize-cellphone-
data)

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chibg10
Is this really a good thing?

1\. Indiscriminate collection by law enforcement is bad to start with.

2\. Since we agree it was bad to collect such data, we’re going to set a
precedent that law enforcement can’t have exclusive rights to that data.
Instead, now some legal process allows bureaucrats or justices to give data
improperly collected about me to third party private agencies that I’m not
familiar with.

This is supposed to be a win for me? If data was improperly collected, it
should be _deleted_. I don’t care how much value Org X thinks it can derive
from that data and how many government employees Org X can persuade to share
it with them.

I gather from comments here that EFF has a laudable mission and track record,
but the reputation or purpose of the organization in question is orthogonal to
the reasonableness of the data sharing precedent.

Perhaps I’m missing some crucial facts?

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axus
FOIA is "some legal process". If we don't want that data getting out, we
shouldn't allow its collection.

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chibg10
FOIA doesn’t usually involve _my_ personal data as a typical private citizen.
Personal data that can potentially be traced back to me and affect my life in
negative ways. It usually involves data about the work that the government
itself is doing... work that is funded with my tax dollars and involving data
that ostensibly can’t be used to harm me personally. Data sharing increases
the attack surface for that data... considering I never consented to that data
being collected in the first place, the supposed government of the people
should be working very hard to make sure my data isn’t abused or hacked.

Agreed on the latter statement though.

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mc32
This is for LA “law enforcement” not sure if that’s LAPD only... though would
appear broader.

Wonder if they’ll go after private ALPR systems like in Tiburon/Belvedere.

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anon1m0us
How does having the data tell the EFF how they are _using_ the data? If you
give me a spreadsheet with a bunch of data in it, I don't know how you use it.

Are they using it legally? How can we know just by looking at the data they
have?

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hnburnsy
How about what parts of town they are collecting this data in and where APLR
readers are located. Are all readers based on police vehicles? Are there fixed
links location readers? I would assume every entry comes with lat\long and
time of day.

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irq-1
In addition to data Creation and Reading, we also have to address Update and
Delete.

Do they change the data or delete "special" cars or "special" events. If there
are _any_ exceptions to collecting and storing the data, we can't trust it for
much of anything: maybe the license plate entry was changed to a different
license, maybe seeing a license at a location was added to the data, maybe
other suspects are ruled out because data was deleted. And there will
absolutly be exceptions: undercover officers, the presidents motorcade, people
with stalkers, etc...

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tyingq
I suppose you could register a company in Arizona (supports quasi-anonymous
llc), then register the car in the company's name. They could obviously
correlate if needed, but would somewhat force probable cause first.

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dublinben
Good luck insuring a car registered to an out of state LLC without lying to
your insurance company.

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tyingq
Wouldn't that be a common thing? Don't LLCs have operations in locales other
than where they are registered?

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pcdoodle
Nice!

I wonder if they have other tech on premises with the LPR cams doing BLE
sniffing for "loose your keys" BLE tags and other UUID fingerprints like
802.11.

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Animats
Does this mean we can download the data set?

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OrgNet
hope so... it would (maybe) make people realize how bad of a privacy invasion
it is... cars should not have a visible tag... they should also not have all
these wireless transmitters (like TPMS with unique IDs)

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jumpingmice
Why do you think you should be able to drive, in public, but anonymously?

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1000units
There's a difference between being readily identifiable and actively
surveilled.

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jumpingmice
No, the two are isomorphic.

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1000units
In what's-possible-land, not what's-proper.

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Epopeehief54
FINALLY! The best case here is that by scanning plates, you are casting a wide
net and investigating without reasonable suspicion - which itself is a
violation of your Fourth Amendment rights. The security and usage of that data
is a whole other can of worms that also needs to be addressed.

Also, fwiw, if you drive a car made in the last 5 years, in all likelihood the
manufacturer is tracking you as well.

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PeterStuer
Most people are completely oblivious to just how far surveillance capitalism
is observing their every move inside public and private spaces.

Sad truth is that even if they would be aware, they'd just shrug their
shoulders and let it be as they would have been framed to see it as either an
inevitable state of things, or, being done in the name of their 'security' or
some other vague benefit (personalized service).

Frameworks like the GDPR are steps in the right direction, but unless
enforcement is staffed and funded at a scale to match the threat (It is not,
not even close on a galactic scale), its impacts will mostly be cosmetic.

Don't get me wrong, I do applaud the work of privacy advocates, but unless we
have a systemic change to reign in surveillance capitalism and captured
regulation, things will only get worse.

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detail-oriented
When the city i live in announced they were deploying these readers i got a
response from our police chief, he advised me that refusal to install them
would result in their department losing some certification that allowed them
to remain as independent as possible.

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Something1234
This opens some interesting questions. What certificates and independence
requirements the police have?

How would these scanners and help?

Without the scanners who would they be dependent on?

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Bnshsysjab
I’ve always been curious how much data fixed cameras in Australia is used by
LE, how can I find out?

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sova
Go EFF!

