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DannyB writes:

Judge orders Fairfax police to stop collecting data from license plate readers

Victory for privacy advocates could force police statewide to erase license databases

A Fairfax County judge on Monday ordered the Fairfax County police to stop maintaining a database of photos of vehicle license plates, with the time and location where they were snapped, ruling that "passive use" of data from automated license plate readers on the back of patrol cars violates Virginia privacy law.

[...] The ruling by Fairfax Circuit Court Judge Robert J. Smith is a victory for privacy rights advocates who argued that the police could track a person's movements by compiling the times and exact locations of a car anytime its plate was captured by a license plate reader.

[...] Police say they can, and have, used license plate location data to find dangerous criminals and missing persons. Privacy advocates don't oppose the use of the technology during an active investigation, but they say that maintaining a database of license plate locations for months or years provides too much opportunity for abuse by the police. Last month, the ACLU disclosed that the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency was tapping into a vast, national database of police and private license plate readers. Such private databases remain unregulated.

The Fairfax judge's ruling applies only to the Fairfax police, but it may find a receptive audience, and have statewide impact

Imagine if all cars looked exactly the same.

Original Submission