
Repo companies have passively scanned & uploaded locations of 9B license plates - mark-ruwt
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ne879z/i-tracked-someone-with-license-plate-readers-drn
======
tomatotomato37
I think the scariest part of is in the first part of this; the collection of
data was _voluntarily_ crowdsourced by repo men all acting as independent
actors. While right now there is still a centralized corporation that can be
targeted to stop the practice, I can see a future where this stuff becomes
decentralized in the same lieu as software piracy sites and their
infrastructure is done today, maintained by "helpful" repomen/investigators
that each have a pervasive interest in maintaining such a resource.

~~~
ThrustVectoring
The fundamental problem is that technology has made collecting this
information too cheap. Instead of manual entry and uploads, it's automated
with essentially zero marginal cost over and above putting the cameras on cars
or buildings.

The solution is to make license plate collection expensive again - allow
people to install license plate covers that people can manually lift to read
the plate and automatically retract when the car is started.

~~~
rlucas
I'm a huge proponent of this core idea -- that networked technologies have
changed the cost structure that underpins our 20th century implicit
understandings about privacy, and that one stopgap approach is to rework the
economics of surveillance in a way that re-approximates the cost structure
under which our legal and moral consensus was developed.

For example, it was never possible to read, secretly and automatically, in
bulk, everyone's correspondence in the 20th century. With email, it's a
commonplace that governments do it routinely. Encryption doesn't make it
impossible to figure out what someone's corresponding about, it just makes it
more expensive (as the investigator may need to devote resources to shoulder-
surfing or other means instead of auto-collection). It used to be fairly
expensive to have to go to the post office and steam open an envelope, copy
it, and seal it back up without detection.

Likewise for various other surveillance technologies, such as the ALPR/ANPRs.
The people who (still) write our laws were raised watching TV cops listen for
a radio APB on a license plate. For their intuitions about this matter to be
valid, it should be roughly as costly in manpower, time, and attention to do a
"live alert" on a license plate today as it was for those TV cops.

A pen register used to be an actual box you put at the central office on a
specific bad guy of interest, not an excuse to sweep up and cross-correlate
every dialed number ever. Again, several orders of magnitude cost difference
here, in a way where the difference of degree (cost) becomes a difference of
kind.

The big danger IMO is when you have well-meaning legislators and jurists
opining about network-enabled privacy intrusions using intuitions and examples
formed with 20th century cost expectations.

Eventually those expectations will need to reflect current technology, but in
the meantime, anything that can be done to raise the cost of pervasive
surveillance is IMO a good thing as it buys time for legal and moral
intuitions (much slower rate of change) to adapt.

~~~
qqn
That was such a great comment that I sent it to a few of my friends. Thank
you.

------
johnohara
I saw an ALPS vehicle a few months back in the parking lot of a local Wal-Mart
(AZ). It was rolling slowly up and down the aisles searching for what at first
I presumed was a parking spot closer to the front doors.

Closer inspection revealed it's true nature. Mounted on the trunk lid were
four cameras, two on each side, angled slightly downward.

The vehicle was an old piece of sht Ford Crown Vic P71 with white doors, black
body, black rims, rusted spotlight, and slightly visible police decal
adhesive. The kind you purchase at government auction for $750. It looked like
something Reevers would use as a daily driver.

Certainly not as classy as a Google Maps car, but apparently getting the job
done because parked in the outer lot was a shiny-new, jet-black, "deluxe"
companion tow truck with chrome rims and full stealthiness -- waiting for a
hit.

------
the_watcher
As someone pointed out below, the entire purpose of license plates is to
easily track and identify cars. There's no reason to require the outward
display of a license plate otherwise. In fact, there's _already_ a more
accurate and up to date piece of information that isn't required to be
displayed: your registration card.

I'd never seriously thought about this until reading this story, probably
because they've been ubiquitous for decades and as a little kid I loved seeing
the different state versions, but I'm surprised that I've never come across a
serious discussion about the privacy implications and whether or not it's
Constitutional (if it's been addressed, would love a pointer to the case). It
doesn't seem like a huge logical leap from the idea of digital anonymity.

~~~
mrlala
>privacy implications

I think you voluntarily giving up a certain amount of privacy when you choose
to drive on the road. Sure yes you can argue most places you don't really have
a choice since you need a car. But then I could argue back- if you value that
type of privacy SO MUCH then you can choose to move to an area where you can
walk or use public transportation.

I just think this is one of those times where the pros heavily outweigh the
cons. Criminals and people who should not be on the road can be way more
easily tracked with license plates. I can't really think of a situation where
I would care that someone is passively recording my plate location as I drive
by?

Also what if you are illegally parked somewhere. How is an officer supposed to
issue you a ticket without your plates?

~~~
MereInterest
> But then I could argue back- if you value that type of privacy SO MUCH then
> you can choose to move to an area where you can walk or use public
> transportation.

This same style of argument when applied to freedom of speech leads to the
appropriately criticized "free speech zones". I have a right to travel and a
right to privacy. Saying that I can only use one of these rights at a time is
absurd. My opinion on this specific instance might change if the US invested
as much into public transportation as it does into roadways, but that is not
the case.

> I can't really think of a situation where I would care that someone is
> passively recording my plate location as I drive by?

Driving to a union meeting? Driving to an abortion clinic? Driving to a church
of a different religion/denomination than your family? Driving away from an
abusive partner?

~~~
mrlala
> I have a right to travel and a right to privacy. Saying that I can only use
> one of these rights at a time is absurd.

You are so fixated on the car in this mindeset.

Do you have the right to fly an airplane and have privacy at the same time? If
you don't have it in the air, why do you think you should have it on the
roads?

~~~
qqn
Good point with the car fixation. We're very close to easy personalized air
travel (eg: the English Channel hoverboard crossing of earlier this summer).
License plates are made for objects with a clear front and back, traveling
mostly forwards and backwards. How will we identify personal carrier drones?
Maybe the answer to this question will move us out of the box and provide a
more robust solution to this general license plate issue, and then we can
apply that to cars.

------
wavepruner
Those interested in this issue will definitely want to check out Grassland.
It's basically a blockchain project to democratize video surveillance.
[http://grassland.network](http://grassland.network)

"Grassland is a self-organizing , self-sustaining and self-correcting,
anonymous network of AI software that quickly and cheaply turns any 2D video
feed from any single-perspective camera into live 3D models and can organize
data captured from millions of cameras around the world into a real-time,
secure, global simulation. It lets humans view the world in a manner like the
games SimCity® or Civilization®[1] and lets machines internalize, understand
and interact intuitively with the real world."

Previous Hacker News discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19529921](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19529921)

------
exhilaration
A word of advice for those of you that live in the 19 states that don't
require a front license: always back into parking spots to make it difficult
or impossible to read your plates. There are other good reasons (like
increased safety) for backing into parking spots and keeping your travel
history private is just one of them.

~~~
luckydata
don't back into parking spots that are right in front of an apartment window
or the entrance of a store though, you'll be piping escape gases in people's
faces, especially with a truck.

~~~
luckydata
I would REALLY like to know what's controversial about this statement.

~~~
eigenloss
Probably the exhaust/escape typo.

------
_verandaguy
To clarify: the DRN database contains 9B _scans_ of license plates, not scans
of 9B license plates.

------
carapace
Privacy is dead because technology enables ubiquitous surveillance and
economics and politics drive it to the limit.

I don't like it and I'm not advocating it, but the question of what a truly,
deeply post-privacy society will be like is fascinating.

A very important question is whether or not the administrators of the system
were subject to it as well.

------
rdtwo
This would be an interesting database to play with. Using the data here you
could backtrack where all the customers in a business live and work. Or you
could go forward and figure out where all the people in an area shop. You can
do the same with google maps and Apple data but idk if that info would be
accessible

~~~
neaden
If by interesting you mean horrifying then yes. Let's be clear, tracking
people this way potentially gives you information about their job, religion,
health status, clubs, friends, romantic relationships, and family members. It
is a massive data liability, comparable to the credit score companies.

~~~
rdtwo
It’s nothing compared to the database chase has. Chase can tell you not only
the above but they can break down what brand of mustard each neighborhood
consumes and what color and style of underwear you prefer. This just seems
like it would be easier for a startup to get access to.

~~~
AdamJacobMuller
Are merchants sharing purchase-level information with credit card companies
now?

~~~
rdtwo
I think the corporate chase card breaks down a lot of the purchase details for
my employer

------
zachguo
Once I asked a company how they calculated the conversion rate of a billboard
ad, I was told they got data from smart billboards reading car plates and
linking them to people's online presence.

~~~
qqn
Wow okay, that's terrifying. Especially since it's so passive!

------
cwkoss
Is it legal to hide your car's license plate while the car is not in motion?
Seems like a 'privacy shutter' that deploys when the car is turned off could
be a useful feature.

~~~
rootusrootus
I think it varies by jurisdiction. For example, Oregon requires plates to be
visible on any vehicle being operated on public roads, which might be
interpreted as excluding parked cars (assuming that taking up parking space
does not constitute operation). But the city of Portland has an ordinance
specifically requiring parked cars to have visible plates.

------
joering2
A story of repo cars driving and scanning tags has been seen on HN first time
many years ago. Meanwhile a buddy of mine works for a "secret" company that
has cars driving around ten most criminal infested cities (such as Detroit)
and mass-scanning people's faces behind mirror glass. A single car in a busy
city is able to scan over 25,000 people daily. This info is later fed into the
system and usual clients are Sheriff offices and bounty hunters. I wish
someone like VICE did the story on it, but my buddy only showed me screen
shoots, no company name, nothing.

In 2019 you cannot assume you have any sort of privacy once you leave your
door step, literally.

~~~
sp332
In NH we banned automated license plate readers (ALPRs), including private use
and law enforcement ones. I think this option will get more popular, like SF
banning certain facial recognition scanners.

~~~
mrlala
Why shouldn't law enforcement be able to use it?

I mean.. wouldn't it be great to know if people are driving without valid
registrations? Or if a criminal is trying to get somewhere, and you have their
plates?

Not sure I see a downside here...

~~~
sp332
They tend to get put into databases that are abused, sometimes by LE officers
looking up family members or exes, and sometimes by hackers. Also it's creepy
for the government to keep tabs on millions (well NH is only 1.4 million) of
innocent people. If there's some specific car you're looking for, humans can
keep an eye out for it. Anyone can still track the plates etc. but it's harder
to make a all-encompasing database without automated readers.

Live free or die, eh?

~~~
AdamJacobMuller
Ban collection. Permit surveillance with a warrant.

There's currently an amber alert for a 5-year-old girl (presumptively)
abducted here in NJ [1]. They don't (that I know of) have a license plate but
if they did I don't think any person nor court would have an issue with a
warrant enabling automated surveillance of that plate number.

In an idyllic scenario, you could even enable automated collection and storage
but only allow access with a warrant.

[1] [https://nypost.com/2019/09/18/amber-alert-issued-for-new-
jer...](https://nypost.com/2019/09/18/amber-alert-issued-for-new-jersey-girl-
dulce-maria-alavez/)

------
donclark
Because of this problem, do we have recourse now to hide license plates until
requested by law enforcement? Is there an opportunity for us to update
(change) the old law?

------
dbg31415
Anyone else feel like paying for everything in cash again? This is so creepy,
and it's nothing compared to the data cell phone companies and credit card
companies have on you.

~~~
cproctor
I've wondered whether cash serial numbers are scanned at ATMS and bank
deposits. The metadata could be quite informative.

~~~
kinghajj
I'm pretty certain that they are. Can't remember the source at the moment
though.

------
moltar
Another reason to take a bus ;)

------
timtu7
Is it legal to build such systems? What if tomorrow someone will decide to
replace the government with a private system like this? We've done something
like that in the area of finance, with cryptocurrencies.

~~~
heisenbit
Not legal in Europe.

