HN

Comments (62)

• tptacek
  This is pretty deceptive. A legislative action is "bipartisan" when it has significant, material support from both parties. This is a performative throwaway amendment by a single Democrat who's retiring in a few months and a single fringe-y Republican iconoclast. The districts of both representatives (Chicago for Garcia, and Harrisburg for Perry) flatly oppose it, as do their state governments.In reading this piece at Wired, would you reach that conclusion? Or would you think instead that there is a real chance the federal government might stick a thumb in the eye of every law enforcement agency in the country by blanket-banning ALPRs?If you really want to end ALPRs where you live, organize and pass an ordinance. It is extremely doable.
• Menu

  w10-1
  When reasonable restrictions are needed, I particularly dislike unreasonable ones that make a show but wouldn't pass.> A recipient of assistance under Title 23, United States Code, may not use automated license plate readers for any purpose other than tollingThis one-liner amendment is its own poison pill: it will also outlaw traffic enforcment, cameras used to ticket people who run red lights or speed, since neither are tolling.Sponsors from both parties, but the effect is anti-Democratic. Currently per rough search:- 9 states prohibit speed and red-light cameras - 8 Republican (and Maine)- 5 states expressly permit speed cameras - 4 Democrat (and Tennessee) (CA permitting red-light)Obviously this reduces revenues (in democratic cities) and also drives police/traffic employment. Perhaps ICE abuse and union employment motivates the Democratic sponsor (Jesus "Chuy" García - parents are Teamsters, himself in a retail union). I would have encourage him to permit the use for tolling AND traffic enforcement.
• Menu

  repiret
  This feels like too far the other direction. I am of the opinion that the following are all reasonable, and I think most people would agree with me:* Toll enforcement (the only thing allowed by the law)* Speeding enforcement* Parking enforcement* Real-time alerting for vehicles that could be pulled over if you knew nothing other than the vehicle's identity. Stolen, unregistered, uninsured, amber-alert, etc. [1]I think the following are all unreasonable, and I think most people would agree with me:* Selling the data for any commercial purposes (perhaps with the exception of aggregated statistical data)* Mining the data "suspicious patterns of activity".I think the following is reasonable, but some people may disagree:* Retaining the data for a limited time, so that if a crime is reported involving a specific vehicle, you can look back for sightings of the vehicle contemporaneous with the crime to help catch the bad guys.Given my thoughts on what is and is not reasonable, I think the ideal policy is one that focuses on limiting retention, limiting sharing, and limiting the types of queries that can be performed on the data. Something like:* Can retain the data for 90 days. Data that is evidence of a specific crime can be kept longer with the evidence file for that crime, and destroyed when the investigation is done.* Can use the data where knowing a series of (time, place) pairs for a vehicle is probable cause of an infraction (or toll due). This covers speeding and parking and tools and red lights and registration/etc, but doesn't allow looking for suspicious patterns of activity.* Can query the data for sightings of a specific vehicle with reasonable suspicion that the vehicle was involved in a crime. Need to keep records of these queries to identify abuse. Maybe need to notify owner when such a query is made.* Can not disclose the data to third parties, except in the case when they agree to follow all these same rules (so you can share with other departments or law enforcement service providers, but that doesn't enable an end-run around the rules)[1]: And I think it's important here that if data about a vehicle be eligible to be pulled over knowing nothing but it's license plate is out of date or otherwise wrong, then someone gets in serious trouble. Otherwise nobody is incentivized to keep their database up to date.
• Menu

  zulux
  If a single car manufacturer decides to capture license plate data from their customers ' cars' cameras, then we're back where we started.
• Menu

  imglorp
  IMO, it's too focused.Because of the global jurisdictions involved, and because of the immense, pressures against this from the governments and their private owners, we need an international information bill of rights. It needs to be adopted by every country that values humanity, privacy, and freedom. Its scope would encompass things like ALPRs.No, I don't think it will be possible in the current climate.
• Menu

  unethical_ban
  If we accept that ALPR have a place in society, the data needs the same level of narrow scope and judicial process that other personal tracking data has. I don't care what the precedent is for regular cameras: AI-enabled facial/ALPR tracking is highly invasive action by the government and should be regulated as such.You want to search a database? Go to a judge, give your probable cause, get approval. No exceptions and no automated aggregation of tracking across jurisdictions.
• josefritzishere
  I would prohibit even more but it's a start. Mass surveillance needs to end. America is supposed to be the land of the free.
• cucumber3732842
  I like this proposed policy and I'll happily take the win if it passes but I see two subtexts here and neither is good:First is that local and state governments have been deploying 1984 for enforcement of petty matters for which dispensing "real" enforcement labor can't be justified economically politically a or both. The feds are fine with this because they can get at that data. What they're not fine with is that it's pissing people off. The feds are worried that this could turn into court and legislative precedents that make things harder for them. For example the DEA doesn't want their flagship I95 surveillance corridor to get nerfed because NYC went too far with it's own pet project and laws got made in response. They'll happily tell the states "no you can't do this thing we do" in order to preserve their own ability to do the thing.Second is that the feds don't like that the public is becoming soured on the regulatory hackjobs of the 1970s that were hailed as great successes at the time. As the country becomes more divided people are realizing that the current "have the feds grand fund everything at least in part" paradigm results in strings that nobody wants being attached to everything. So doing one little thing that everyone agrees on is seen as a way to say "look we can do good with this power we really shouldn't have in the first place".
• sixothree
  The question is not how you go about banning the use of this particular tracking. The only question to ask is how you can weaponize this tracking for your own political gain.
• anon
  undefined
• Menu

  baggy_trough
  What an appalling development. I rely on these for safety in my neighborhood.
• Menu

  saltyoldman
  All those cameras you see on top of intersections? Yeah those - are going to be used for this instead of flock in a few years. They're letting flock take the public hit, it's all going to move.
• Menu

  jakelazaroff
  This would be terrible — as written, the bill would also ban red light and speeding cameras. These are some of our most effective tools for traffic law enforcement; for instance, speeding cameras in NYC resulted in a 94% (!!!) reduction in speeding where they're installed [1].I want to see Flock banned as much as the next person, but we can't throw the baby out with the bathwater here.[1] https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pr2025/nyc-dot-speed-camer...