Lebo Police Are Watching You

The headline in the Post-Gazette reads "License plate readers keep eye on scofflaws, criminals," but that title is misleading. (Joe posted a link to the full story here.) Mt. Lebanon police now have equipment in their cars to track all vehicles in town, whether or not they belong to scofflaws or criminals. They're watching all of us.

From the story:

Officers might run only 100 or so license plates in a shift, but the ALPR system will record 7,500 plates in just a couple of hours.

[Mt. Lebanon police officer Thomas "Chip"] Sanders hopes that eventually the ALPR device will be able to fish out cars with expired tags, because they're difficult to see with the naked eye, or suspended registrations.

This would give him cause to pull over, impound and search far more vehicles, which could contain contraband. He called it "another avenue to get into the car."

This, too, concerns [Electronic Privacy Information Center founder and executive director Marc] Rotenberg, who said ALPR "creates an enormous opportunity to stop people who might not otherwise be stopped." Mr. Rotenberg said that record accuracy also has been an issue, even with national databases. In a recent case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that anything recovered from a search prompted by bad information is admissible in court.

"The likelihood will evolve that a lot of innocent people are stopped," he said.

In general, I assume that our local police officers are acting in good faith. But the notion reflected in that passage -- that Mt. Lebanon police are looking for another way to get into my car -- is chilling.

(Of course, you can avoid problems by ensuring that no one who rides in your car ever carries anything that anyone, anywhere might find objectionable or offensive. You'll still get pulled over, but you may get off with just a warning.)

Marc Rotenberg, quoted above by the Post-Gazette, is one of the leading privacy advocates in the world. But he isn't some radical civil libertarian run amok. I've known Marc for 25 years, and he is and has always been a voice of reason and moderation in analyzing the uses of new technologies.