Florida Town Stores License Plate Camera Images For Ten Years 122
An anonymous reader writes "Yet another privacy concern story, this time from Florida. The Longboat Key police have their new license plate camera up and running, but according to the police chief, this one stores all images as 'evidence' for up to ten years. When questioned about the possibility for abuses of this camera's historical record, the chief said, 'There are regulations, policies and laws in place that prohibit that kind of abuse. And if abuse is discovered, it's punished.' What could possibly go wrong?"
Welcome to Earth (Score:5, Informative)
"'There are regulations, policies and laws in place that prohibit that kind of abuse. And if abuse is discovered, it's punished."
It looks like you're new here. Welcome to Earth. Tell me more about your planet; what color is the sky there?
Here are a few starting points to learn a bit more about how The Blue Wall works when the department regulates its own behavior:
Wikipedia: Blue Code of Silence [wikipedia.org]
Wikipedia: Frank Serpico [wikipedia.org]
Wikipedia: Rampart Scandal [wikipedia.org]
10 Years? (Score:5, Informative)
That's appears to be longer than most Criminal Statute of Limitations [criminalde...lawyer.com] in Florida, except for the most serious crimes.
Not only intrusive, but completely unnecessary (Score:5, Informative)
I grew up about a 15 minute drive away from Longboat key. Incidentally, I ran a camera at some of their city council meetings back when I did live video work, and they were about the most boring things I've ever sat through in my life. I literally watched them debate what kind of sand they should use to replenish their beaches for two hours on one occasion. On another I saw an argument go on for the better part of three hours, in which a new guest dock was being built at a gated community and the resident whose yard it was adjacent to was very much concerned that boats parked at the dock would obscure his view of the gulf. In a truly political compromise, they finally agreed that the dock would be built, but boaters should only use one side of it.
The reason I remember these anecdotes is that they were by far the most exciting things I saw happen at any point in their city council meetings. Longboat key is a quiet community of mostly elderly, very wealthy retirees. Not only is it populated almost entirely by senior citizens, but the island is well enough isolated that there's essentially zero risk of almost anyone ever deliberately going there: the only reason I've ever been to it was for the aforementioned jobs and to drive through it to get to Sarasota. Basically, to anyone who's ever been near Longboat Key, the idea that they need any automated license plate scanning system, let alone one that retains records for a decade, is laughably absurd.