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Ars Technica Obtains Large Dataset of Oakland Police Department License Plate Scans

posted by LaminatorX on Wednesday March 25 2015, @07:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the trust-no-one dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

Ars Technica used a public records request to obtain a large dataset of license plate scans from 33 License Plate Readers (LPRs) in Oakland, California:

OAKLAND, Calif.—If you have driven in Oakland any time in the last few years, chances are good that the cops know where you’ve been, thanks to their 33 automated license plate readers (LPRs).

Now Ars knows too.

In response to a public records request, we obtained the entire LPR dataset of the Oakland Police Department (OPD), including more than 4.6 million reads of over 1.1 million unique plates between December 23, 2010 and May 31, 2014. The dataset is likely one of the largest ever publicly released in the United States—perhaps in the world.

After analyzing this data with a custom-built visualization tool, Ars can definitively demonstrate the data's revelatory potential. Anyone in possession of enough data can often—but not always—make educated guesses about a target’s home or workplace, particularly when someone’s movements are consistent (as with a regular commute).

It seems the cars of police officers, politicians, and others doing the spying should have been captured by the LPRs too. A prize for the first person to separate out what they've been up to...

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 25 2015, @10:30PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 25 2015, @10:30PM (#162546)

    Matis wasn't worried about OPD capturing such data, but he was less comfortable knowing that the data was released to the media.

    “If anyone can get this information, that’s getting into Big Brother,” he told Ars. “If I was trying to look at what my spouse is doing, [I could]. To me, that is something that is kind of scary. Why do they allow people to release this without a law enforcement reason? Searching it or accessing the information should require a warrant.”

    so he's vehemently against surveillence but only if the people being surveilled are able to access the data? wow! Classic doublethink and he even references 1984! poor brainwashed slave...

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