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Submitted by an Anonymous Coward:
https://www.wired.com/story/license-plate-readers-political-signs-bumper-stickers/
AI-powered cameras on cars and trucks have been used to capture images of political signs, individuals wearing T-shirts with text, and vehicles displaying pro-abortion bumper stickers. The data, reviewed by WIRED, shows how a tool originally designed for traffic enforcement has evolved into a system capable of monitoring 'speech' protected by the US Constitution.
[...] Another image taken on a different day by a different vehicle shows a "Steelworkers for Harris-Walz" sign stuck in the lawn in front of someone's home. A construction worker, with his face unblurred, is pictured near another Harris sign. Other photos show Trump and Biden (including "Fuck Biden") bumper stickers on the back of trucks and cars across America. One photo, taken in November 2023, shows a partially torn bumper sticker supporting the Obama-Biden lineup.
These images were generated by AI-powered cameras mounted on cars and trucks, initially designed to capture license plates, but which are now photographing political lawn signs outside private homes, individuals wearing T-shirts with text, and vehicles displaying pro-abortion bumper stickers—all while recording the precise locations of these observations.
The detailed photographs all surfaced in search results produced by DRN Data, a license-plate-recognition (LPR) company owned by Motorola Solutions. The LPR system can be used by private investigators, repossession agents, and insurance companies. However, files shared with WIRED by artist Julia Weist show that those with access to the LPR system can search for common phrases or names, such as those of politicians, and be served with photographs where the search term is present, even if it is not displayed on license plates. The research also reveals the extent to which surveillance is happening on a mass scale in the quiet streets of America, and how people's personal political views and homes can be recorded into vast databases that can be queried.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by vux984 on Tuesday October 08 2024, @07:09PM (1 child)
You still seem to not understand. Nobody is saying the "speech" is private. It's right there on the sign, in public, and intended for the public to see. Nobody is suggesting you shouldn't see the sign. Go ahead and take a picture of the sign if you want. Nobody objects to that either.
But the meta-data around that sign, especially in bulk aggregate, connected to every other bit of meta data being collected in bulk aggregate IS a privacy issue.
For example, lets say you were friends with someone who lived with a person who placed that sign up, and visited that friend from time to time. Now in some database somewhere, your face is being tagged, and associated with that sign. Maybe some years later you were in a passenger of a car with bumper sticker with a similar message. On your profile. Maybe you visited the library while some protestors were there raising an issue. Maybe you went to a movie that was thematically related. Perhaps you had a college classmate who became significant in some way. All dumped into your profile.
Then 10 years later, that political view that you don't even have is "problematic" in some way.
The owner of the car with a bumper sticker, and that friends roomate with the sign, those protestors, that classmate etc are all experiencing fallout from their actions. Serves them right! Right? Really?
But then you get denied credit, or a job, or a security clearance, you'll never know why. You too are a 2nd class citizen now, and even if you find out why, you'll have no recourse to fix it. You've been tagged multiple times with people and events associated this problematic view over the years too. Serves you right. Actions have consequences. Right? Even you? Really??
You might not have an expectation that all this data collected on all the worlds cameras "in public" be afforded certain privacy protections from being used in aggregate like this. But you SHOULD have that expectation. The implications are profoundly negative. And after all, if it was just you that I built this profile on, it'd be stalking and harrassment, even if you were out "in public"...but if I do it to the entire population of the country, then its ok?!
(Score: 2) by hopdevil on Wednesday October 09 2024, @04:05PM
You make some really good points, and I don't disagree that in a more ideal, privacy oriented society, there SHOULD be an expectation of privacy from mass surveillance and aggregation.. but in the world as it is now, it isn't the case. Sorry, that just isn't the society most of us live in.
And if there is a place in the world where this is true I'd be interested to know where.