
Carlsbad, CA to photograph every car entering city - t23
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/communities/north-county/sd-no-plate-readers-20170317-story.html
======
pavel_lishin
> _Four council members, however, said they’re confident the information can
> be kept secure_

Based on what? The contract appears to be with a company that provides safety
equipment, not electronics/surveillance equipment. How exactly is Mallory
Safety & Supply a trusted security provider?

> _and that the system will increase safety for residents and police
> officers._

Based on what?

> _They also said it may deter criminals from breaking the law in the city._

Based on what?

> _“It’s really hard to put a price on trying to fight crime,” said Mayor Matt
> Hall. “When it’s a violent crime, and you can prevent it, how do you put a
> price on that?_

What about all the times when it's not a violent crime? When it's not a crime
at all? The statistics cited at the beginning of the article didn't mention
violent crimes at all.

~~~
tn13
Based on bureaucratic overconfidence.

The real problem with most american cities is that there isn't that much crime
yet the politicians feel the need to fight non-existent unfightable crime by
making our lives miserable. California could have lead the way in offering
good solutions for homelessness, mental illness, drug war, school choice etc.
but yet it pushes for more and more nazi styled policies.

------
al2o3cr

        Councilman Keith Blackburn, a retired police officer. “I don’t think this ... is going to violate privacy.”
    

And if it does, I'm 100% confident that the likes of Mr. Blackburn will do
everything in their power to protect the cops over the citizenry.

------
ldayley
One aspect of this that isn't widely discussed is that license plate data
collected is often shared or rented to auto financers and lenders by the
company or municipality collecting the data. It allows them to keep tabs on
subprime auto loan debtors (the numbers of which have been booming in the US
the past few years).

Sources:
[http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/10/16/356...](http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/10/16/356693782/your-
car-wont-start-did-you-make-the-loan-payment)

[http://www.alliedsolutions.net/Our-
Solutions/Collections.asp...](http://www.alliedsolutions.net/Our-
Solutions/Collections.aspx)

------
6d6b73
Honestly, why do we expect privacy on a public road?

I could install small camera on my house, direct it at the road, and start
recording. Run it through some image recognition, and share it online. Am I
violating your privacy?

~~~
dsfyu404ed
We've established this time and time again, it's the scale and
comprehensiveness of the coverage and the power/authority of the entity
collecting the data that matters.

~~~
bluejekyll
Given that this is a city, it seems like this fight will come up a million
times across the country. Is there some more federal legislation that should
be pushed to block this type of practice?

Something akin to the consumer privacy act, but instead the citizen privacy
act?

~~~
wheelerwj
lol, who do you think is going to fund this?

------
everybodyknows
Carlsbad is unusual among the small towns in the North County area for having
its own PD. And it's gained some notoriety:
[https://youtu.be/WhYRYzzA244](https://youtu.be/WhYRYzzA244)

------
pinaceae
Fastrak already does this, using any toll crossing or paid express lane
triggers it. Good luck entering SF from Marin without getting scanned.

~~~
komali2
How good are those cameras, though? I've crossed from Marin at least 8 times
now, each time with the "cash taker" lanes having no staff. I assumed it would
be like in Houston, where you just get billed via mail, or can call and pay.
Nobody I've called is aware of me owing anything on my plate, though, and I've
never got anything in the mail.

Maybe I did my plates wrong... I also never received the ticket the angry SFO
cop promised I would get for not picking up my friend fast enough.

~~~
praneshp
are those parking enforcement people at SFO cops? I always thought they were
hired hands or something. They do wear shiny badges to look like cops though.

While the police have their faults, they usually control things much better, I
feel. The dropoff area at SFO is a tragedy.

~~~
seanp2k2
Fly SJC or OAK whenever you can. Much less painful.

~~~
praneshp
Yup, I usually stick to SJC, except Intl. flights. I go there mostly to pick
up visiting friends.

------
aurelius12
Tiburon, in Marin, already does this and has for years.
[http://www.marinscope.com/twin_cities_times/news/tiburon-
to-...](http://www.marinscope.com/twin_cities_times/news/tiburon-to-take-
photos-of-all-cars-plates/article_eac28dda-013f-596c-8e92-81d3067ab4ef.html)

------
darpa_escapee
At a later date, they'll sell that data.

~~~
turc1656
Yep, like when the city gets into financial trouble and can't meet it's
overstuffed pension promises. Don't worry, though. I'm sure it will just be
"anonymized" data that won't be personally attachable to you and I'm sure that
they will follow best security practices and there will never, ever be a hack
or data breach.

------
hondo77
> “It’s really hard to put a price on trying to fight crime,” said Mayor Matt
> Hall.

I bet he can put a price tag on a dozen additional police officers. No
kickbacks there, though.

------
carsarecool
Am I missing something here? A small California town seems unimpressive
compared to other rollouts of this technology including the entire island of
Manhattan, as well as [all?] toll roads.

[0] [https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/documents-uncover-
nypd...](https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/documents-uncover-nypds-vast-
license-plate-reader-database)

[1] [http://www.mta.info/news-governor-cuomo-bridges-and-
tunnels-...](http://www.mta.info/news-governor-cuomo-bridges-and-tunnels-led-
lights-open-road-tolling-automatic-tolling/2016/10/05)

" At each crossing, and at structurally sensitive points on bridges and
tunnels, advanced cameras and sensors will be installed to read license plates
and test emerging facial recognition software and equipment. These
technologies will be applied across airports and transit hubs – including the
Penn-Farley Complex – to ultimately develop one system-wide plan."

------
strathmeyer
I'm wondering when they're going to make the people in my town take the FOP
and actual opaque full plate covers off.

------
olivermarks
must find those cardboard 'I just bought my car at SpeedyMart' temporary
number plates to fit when driving into Carlsbad...that's what people who don't
want to pay the fast trak tolls in the bay area do...

------
danblick
Near my old workplace there was an incident where somebody tried to set a fire
at night and the police got involved. The criminal got away that night, but I
was impressed that they actually caught him a few days later. I got to
thinking about how you could do this with today's technology when you're
recording things all the time... "Give me the license plates of all the cars
that arrived after 11 and left the area between 12:30am and 1:00am?" To say
nothing of tracking people using cell phones. (Recall that last bit was
discussed in the Snowden leaks...)

------
ourmandave
Cynical me read this as Carlsbad To Finally Just Admit They've Been
Photographing Every Car Entering City for Years.

------
johnjhayes
my initial reaction is to be against this, and then I think but I'm for
driverless cars and that cat is pretty much born outside of the bag.

------
mirimir
Paywall free link: [http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/communities/north-
county...](http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/communities/north-county/sd-no-
plate-readers-20170317-story.html)

~~~
dang
Ok, we changed to that from [http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-
carlsbad-license-pl...](http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-carlsbad-
license-plates-20170320-story.html).

~~~
colemannugent
Current article link still seems to have the same paywall. Interestingly, it's
almost exactly the same paywall.

Edit: Seems they're both owned by the same parent company:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tronc#Current_properties](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tronc#Current_properties)

~~~
dang
Twas worth a try.

~~~
rayvd
Easy to bypass, just turn off Javascript temporarily and reload the page.

~~~
ww520
Thanks! That does the trick. Used Yesscript add-on to turn of javascript for
the site specifically.

------
megablast
I have no problem with this. Cars are incredibly dangerous, cause over a
million deaths a year. I have no problem with every single car being
constantly tracked.

~~~
coin
Citation needed. For the US this number is less than 50,000, where are other
950,000 car deaths occurring?

~~~
diziet
WHO:
[http://www.who.int/gho/road_safety/mortality/en/](http://www.who.int/gho/road_safety/mortality/en/)

The US is about 4.3% of the world population. Typically, other populous
countries have less cars per capita, but also higher accident and fatality
rates.

~~~
jedikv
Looking at the data, most of those deaths come from India and China -
countries that have fundamental infrastructure problems. Traffic mortality is
a symptom of something much bigger.

