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Open Source License Plate Reader: Little Brother Strikes Back!

posted by martyb on Sunday December 06 2015, @07:31PM   Printer-friendly
from the goose-and-gander dept.

Justin Case writes:

If you have an IP-enabled security camera, you can download some free, open-source software from GitHub and boom—you have a fully functional automated license plate reader, reports ArsTechnica .

Matt Hill, OpenALPR's founder, told Ars technica "I'm a big privacy advocate... now you've got LPR just in the hands of the government, which isn't a good thing."

Will "they" like it when "we" have a crowdsourced database of where and when congressmen, judges and cops go throughout their work day?

Does this level the playing field? Open yet another can of worms? Both?

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Adamsjas on Sunday December 06 2015, @08:30PM

    by Adamsjas (4507) on Sunday December 06 2015, @08:30PM (#272561)

    Obtaining license plate information is still pretty difficult. Joe Citizen is pretty well frozen out of this information unless you have an insurance claim (your insurance company can get it, but you usually can't).

    Building a database would be slow and painful, (unless there were a lot of state DMV data breaches).

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @09:12PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @09:12PM (#272577)

    Actually it is farily easy. Sometimes it costs a couple of bucks and you often have to at least name the License Number and Make and Model. I know for a fact you can do this in at least these states: Washington, Nebraska, Colorado, and Michigan. Its all public records my friend.

    Ohh and on top of it in many states you can even purchase others driving records for a few bucks. Wow timmy has had a lot of speeding tickets. Its all public records.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 07 2015, @02:44AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 07 2015, @02:44AM (#272704)

      The government doesn't care one bit about your privacy, of course. They just want to exploit the information and sell everything to the highest bidder. Such transparency!

      Lots of things that shouldn't be public records seem to be. That needs to be fixed.

  • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Sunday December 06 2015, @09:30PM

    by dyingtolive (952) on Sunday December 06 2015, @09:30PM (#272584)

    For EVERYONE, yes. Generally police and government vehicles typically follow an easily recognizable plate scheme though, at least, where I'm from.

    --
    Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!