Police can disable your car if you have at least four parking tickets and spy on you in ferries & weigh stations
Seattle, WA - The thousands of photos are entered into a Seattle Police Department database where, for the three months before they are destroyed, they’ll be available for use in criminal investigations.
It's yet another way in which Big Brother is watching.
Automatic license-plate readers have been in the arsenal of large police departments for nearly a decade, but are now getting new scrutiny amid broader concerns about government surveillance.
The SPD is one of many state law-enforcement agencies that use the readers, including several in King County.
Even suburban Beaux Arts Village, population 299, is considering them.
In Seattle, which piloted the technology in 2006, public records indicate 12 police units collected about 7 million license-plate records last year, identifying 426 stolen cars and 3,768 vehicles with at least four unpaid parking tickets.
Critics say the technology remains largely unregulated despite its increased use. They say the database allows police, if they search by license plate, to access where and when everyday citizens have been seen.
Last month, the American Civil Liberties Union published a report on license-plate readers called simply “You Are Being Tracked.”
“These devices got rolled out, thrown out there without any real thinking or policies, and it opened up a new world of concerns,” said Jamela Debelak of the ACLU’s Washington state branch.
The SPD was one of several large United States police departments to try the technology in the mid-2000s, using federal grants.
The department piloted a stolen-car program in 2006 and added a parking-enforcement pilot in 2009.
Seattle police have not moved as quickly as in cities like New York City and Washington, D.C., which now rely heavily on license-plate readers.
But it has expanded its programs and tweaked its policies.
Among the new provisions is the 90-day retention policy; when the ACLU contacted the SPD in 2011, the department had been keeping the records indefinitely.
The SPD’s car program has seven patrol cars outfitted with ALPR cameras.
The parking program has five units (two minivans, two cars and a truck) that identify stolen cars, issue parking citations and, most of all, find vehicles whose owners have at least four parking tickets. Officials are allowed to immobilize those until the driver pays.
The Washington State Patrol uses ALPR cameras on the Seattle-Bainbridge Island ferry, at truck weigh stations and on patrol cars looking for stolen vehicles, said spokesman Bob Calkins.
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2021534204_licenseplatereadersxml.html
Georgia police scan 1,000 cars in 10 minutes:
Augusta, GA - Richmond County Sheriff's officials say they're considering adding license plate readers to their patrol fleet.
Deputy Terry Skinner tells the Augusta Chronicle the automated license plate readers have made an impact in the department during a testing phase.
Skinner says the readers can scan 1,000 cars in 10 minutes and send an alert to the officer driving the car if the license plate is linked to criminal activity.
Lt. Lewis Blanchard says four cameras mounted on the back of a patrol car can snap a photo of an adjacent car's license plate and relay the information to the Georgia Crime Information Center to stop offenders.
http://www.wsav.com/story/23040453/license-plate-readers-make-an-impact-in-georgia