When you’re driving on a public road, your license plate is public information. Cameras used as license plate readers (LPRs) can be mounted on stationary infrastructure like traffic lights or on things that move, like police cars or garbage trucks.
A discussion about massive data collection by cameras that can automatically read vehicle license plates has been going on for about a decade now. Most states do not have any explicit regulation on LPRs, which means their use was fairly wide open.
Law enforcement, unsurprisingly, is generally in favor of automatic LPRs. Chicago police said in 2020 that LPRs could help them solve more expressway shootings. In 2018, a Florida sheriff’s office said it used LPRs to recover stolen cars and a person wanted for sex crimes in another state. In a more recent case, the Journal noted, LPRs were used to arrest “a number of suspected rioters” who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
Read the article at Car and Driver.
