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?"
Over a period of 10 years driving around... (Score:4, Interesting)
Over a period of 10 years driving around, I think it's possible to chock up enough coincidental adjacency to criminal activity that we could selectively pick a non-random set of photos of your vehicle license plate, and establish a circumstantial case against you being involved in criminal activity.
Get a sufficient amount of data on anyone, and you can paint them as a criminal by being selective about the data you choose to use in presenting your case.
Re:He's right, it IS 'evidence' (Score:5, Interesting)
Far worse than just that. The first time I read the headline (half asleep), I read it as "Florida Town Loses License Plate Camera Images For Ten Years". The data mining and privacy loss potential is enormous, so there could be an enormous reward for anyone willing to... how shall I put this... inadvertently misplace a hard drive containing that data.
Remember that the more valuable the data you store electronically, the more likely it is to be stolen and used by the bad guys. At some point the value is so great that more of the data is likely to be used by the bad guys than the good guys. This is true for pretty much any definition of good/bad guys. For example, if I were a crook who knew a crooked cop, this would be a goldmine of information. With this data, I could figure out with a reasonable degree of probability when any given family is unlikely to be home, and use that to my advantage when planning robberies to drastically reduce the amount of stake-out time needed while still minimizing my chances of getting caught. And by looking at the makes of cars, I could gain further insight into the likelihood of the house having valuables in it, allowing me to choose my next target more quickly. Heck, somebody really enterprising could turn it into a black-market data mining business for other robbers and make a small fortune in no time flat.
IMO, even if we completely ignore any risks posed by police abusing the data, the data theft risk alone from keeping this much personally identifiable tracking data on nearly every single person in the state of Florida for such a long period of time far outweighs any possible benefit it could have. Heck, the risk of keeping it for more than about a week far outweighs any practical benefit, statistically speaking. The risk of keeping it for ten years far exceeds the entire benefit of having a police force.
Re:I could photograph your license plate (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes you can private citizen, though It would be very difficult for you to photograph everyone's license plate at various locations all around the city 24/7 and store them forever. And you certainly can't link that person's phone records, bank records, browsing habits, etc.
I agree with the sentiment, but sadly it is out of date. License plates need to be completely rethought in lieu of the new capabilities available to both big brother (government) and little brother (citizenry).
First it was only repo-men: License plate data not just for cops: Private companies are tracking your car [nbcnews.com]
But the allure of monetizing those databases was too much, so the lobbying began: MVTRAC Spearheads Victory Over California SB 1330 [prnewswire.com]
And now the same companies that do track your phone calls, your bank records and your browsing habits are also selling license-plate tracking data:
Data Brokers Are Now Selling Your Car's Location For $10 Online [forbes.com]
And just for shits and giggles I'm going to throw this one in, brought to you by those data brokers: Your employer may share your salary, and Equifax might sell that data [nbcnews.com]
Re:Ya? (Score:1, Interesting)
If I live in a town where police are allowed to murder anyone who breaks the law on the spot if they know the people broke the law and I haven't done anything wrong, that affects my life how?
In which fairy tail land do you live where the government is entirely composed of perfect beings who never make mistakes and never abuse their powers? You certainly don't live on Earth, because history is absolutely filled with examples of government corruption.
Re:What could go wrong? (Score:2, Interesting)
Police officer Victor “Manny” Pellot has been fired for stalking and ... misusing police resources and databases
http://www.eagletribune.com/haverhill/x218351649/Haverhill-cop-fired-for-stalking
http://ogs-silentcrimes.blogspot.com/2013/07/haverhill-former-police-officer.html
Officer Russell Nasby was fired ... used the state driver and vehicle database
http://stalkingvictims.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=277&t=8292
http://staugustine.com/news/2010-03-11/bunnell-officer-fired-over-stalking-allegations
Gee, so hard to search online for cops who got fired for being assholes.
Posting AC so I don't erase the Flamebait mod I gave ShanghaiBill for being an asshole.