Privacy Invasion? - License Plate Reader
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Flock, the automatic license plate reader (ALPR) company whose cameras are installed in more than 5,000 communities in the U.S., is building a product that will use people lookup tools, data brokers, and data breaches to “jump from LPR [license plate reader] to person,” allowing police to much more easily identify and track the movements of specific people around the country without a warrant or court order, according to internal Flock presentation slides, Slack chats, and meeting audio obtained by 404 Media.
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At the moment a police officer might take a result from an ALPR database—a vehicle with this plate was at this location at this time—then use more data from other sources, such as a DMV, to find who owns that vehicle. Then, they might perform open source intelligence, or OSINT, to find out more about that person or where they live by digging through public records. “Law enforcement use these tools every day, just in a very fragmented basis. And what we're doing is bringing them under one roof” with Nova, the employee said in the meeting.
Lipton said “For police, the definition of what is considered ‘open source’ has really expanded to include information to which no one should ever have had access. Our health data, our financial records, or any of our other digital data is hacked and ends up on the Internet, companies scrap it up and add it to their package of information for police. Law enforcement would have otherwise needed to have a valid reason and warrant to access such stuff but now can just buy that access.”
