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July 30, 2012 By News Staff
License plate readers aren't only for big cities anymore. Exhibit A: Iowa.
The technology is quickly becoming a common way for police to identify wanted criminals or gang members. In Des Moines, Iowa, police began using license plate scanners mounted on patrol cars last year, and Sioux City police will begin using the scanners next month, reported the Des Moines Register.
“We’re just trying to make it right for everyone on the street,” said Polk County Sheriff’s Deputy Jeff Rullman, whose vehicle was equipped with the system at no cost to the county thanks to a $26,000 federal grant. “The number of plates this thing will read on a daily basis compared to what an officer can — it’s no comparison. It’s not uncommon to have this thing run 6,000, 7,000 plates” during an eight-hour shift on a busy Des Moines street.
Used primarily in high-crime areas to identify wanted people, police departments around the country praise the technology for its efficiency. Many systems save scanned plates in a database with the time, date and GPS coordinates of the vehicle for later use by police. For instance, in a child abduction case, the wanted vehicle could be identified much more quickly with a network of stationary and mobile scanners.
This kind of surveillance has also gotten the attention of citizens concerned about their privacy rights. In Des Moines, only one city councilmember, Halley Griess, voted against buying the new license plate scanning systems. “I’m not a conspiracy theorist by any means, but I think it’s a dangerous precedent that our privacy comes at the expense of alleged safety,” Griess said.
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Here's where the abuse comes in: say someone gets a DUI at some point in their life. From that point on, once his/her plate is scanned, the officer will change course to follow said subject until that ubiqitious "improper lane usage" offense occurs. Then the interrogation begins. Sounds like a perfect scenario for profiling... only in a different way. Same thing for simple pot possession, registered FOID card owners, etc.
Of course we will continue to see increased usages of technology at every level for everything as budgets continue to forbid the use of humans for surveillance and other "routine" data analysis. The difficulties come because no human can possibly live such a perfect existence from minute to minute that they will not run afoul of some law somewhere sometime--and their follies be electronically recorded forever. With increased sophistications in data mining and analysis, how long before you will be arrested for a crime you have yet to commit based on the "system's" analysis of your current activities and habits? Misuse of data is already occurring on many levels. 1984 is past; but 2014 is just around the corner...
I see nothing wrong with this. The same thing could be achieved without technology if the money was available to hire more officers to drive around and note license plate numbers. So it's not a new capability, just speeding up an existing capability. I think the same argument applies to stop light cameras. How it that more intrusive than having an officer sitting at the light and taking pictures manually? People should expect privacy at home, but not in public. When you are driving your car, you are in public.