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posted by martyb on Saturday October 22 2016, @11:04PM   Printer-friendly
from the convenience-vs.-privacy dept.

A drive-through for your groceries: According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, that's one of Amazon's many ambitions for the next version of its grocery-delivery service, Fresh. The company will set up a series of "convenience stores," the Journal reports, where it will sell basic goods like milk, produce, and meat.

Some locations will also allow people to pick up orders they placed online. Here's how the Journal described that feature:

For customers seeking a quicker checkout, Amazon will soon begin rolling out designated drive-in locations where online grocery orders will be brought to the car, the people said. The company is developing license-plate reading technology to speed wait times.

That detail about the license-plate readers caught my attention. Scanning the license plates of incoming cars makes sense: If your plate is connected to your Amazon account, the system could alert employees working in the store that you've arrived to pick up your grocery order before you even have a chance to park. If someone met you at the curb with your order in hand, you could be in and out of the lot in less than a minute.

But that's not the only reason implementing a license-plate system would be a smart move for Amazon. If the company can convince you to tell it which car is yours, it could link your license plate number to your Amazon account. Then, if it bought data from another company that shows where else your car has traveled, it could potentially use that information to develop an even more complete picture of your habits, preferences, and personality.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/10/amazon-wants-to-scan-your-license-plate/503747/

My state has a variety of specialty license places available for an extra ~$35 year, one of them has black text on a dark purple background. I picked that plate in order to reduce the accuracy of scanners trying to read my license plate. What other methods have people come up with?


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 23 2016, @06:51PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 23 2016, @06:51PM (#417922)

    one of them has black text on a dark purple background. I picked that plate in order to reduce the accuracy of scanners trying to read my license plate.

    If you think they will hand out plates that can't be read by scanners, I've got a bridge for sale.
    We're talking revenue on toll roads, ANPR scanners on police cars etc...

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 24 2016, @11:37AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 24 2016, @11:37AM (#418106)

    In America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, we would never put up with automated number plate recognition (but if they read our license plates that's okay).

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 24 2016, @08:16PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 24 2016, @08:16PM (#418273)

    > If you think they will hand out plates that can't be read by scanners, I've got a bridge for sale.

    I think you overestimate the competence of the DMV. I'm sure that some states are on top of that, but bureaucracy exists everywhere and lots of states haven't connected all the dots yet. Some states still don't even require a plate on the front of the vehicle.