posted in Technology
Week of action planned against license plate readers
More info: www.noalprs.com
spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny/news/2026/08/17/alpr-week-of-action✊1
Please do not call these devices license plate readers. They are surveillance tools with capabilities that far exceed that of normal license plate reading devices. It’s like calling an RPG a spear.
I’m curious why the flock cameras are worse than the “traffic observation cameras” that went up on top of every traffic light in like 2007. I was pretty upset about those at the time, but I never found any other push back.
Not many people upset about the cop cars becoming mobile license plate readers either.
Replying to @I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world
Flock cameras are worse, at least imo, because it’s “active”. The old cameras clocked your speed, took a picture, got processed and sent a fine. The flock cameras will misread your plate, determine you are a violent out of state felon, follow your movement and dispatch a squad to your location. You can be dragged out of the car at gunpoint before you even know what’s happening.
Theres also the universal database aspect that can expose all the different department’s data to each other, allowing officers to do things like saayy, stalk their ex-wives across state lines.
The history of movement they compile, the analysis tools available, the “proactive policing”, and the creep factor of always being monitored all roll together.
I agree that it not functioning properly is bad, but I don’t think we should frame it like that. These aren’t bad because they make mistakes. Fixing the mistakes doesn’t make them acceptable.
Tracking people’s movements at all times is bad. It removes people’s freedoms, and it can easily be used to quash dissent. Even functioning perfectly, it is far too much freedom lost for a small amount of safety.