- ALPR (automatic license plate recognition) camera technology is getting smarter
- A new company is bridging the gap between cameras and connected technology
- Tools to bypass ALPR cameras are rapidly gaining popularity
More than 5,000 law enforcement departments across the United States use Flock Safety cameras to track billions of license plates each month, according to an NBC News report, helping them create a huge database of the movements of everyday people.
But Flock is just one company working on this type of technology, with hundreds of new cameras and automatic license plate reading (ALPR) devices emerging daily.
More recently, 404Media has highlighted a new tech company that aims to add location data from phones, AirPods and Smartwatches to license plate readers to create a clearer picture of who was driving what… and when. Understandably, rogue drivers are now fighting back thanks to a new website called DeFlock.
Leonardo’s SignalTrace system is designed to scan radio waves for signals left by countless Bluetooth and wireless connected devices to link them to a license plate as it passes by, potentially placing a person in a vehicle at a specific time and place.
Leonardo says its technology uses “non-intrusive intelligence gathering” to detect publicly disseminated device identifiers, feeding this data into an advanced algorithm so that multiple devices traveling together can link an individual to a vehicle and vice versa.
Police and other law enforcement agencies can then access this data, but concerns have been raised about the possibility of hacking or misuse by authorities to track personal relationships.
Analysis: Privacy Advocates Are Pushing Back
In a move that aims to return some control to the individual, a website called DeFlock has appeared that allows anyone to plan routes that actively avoid Flock’s ALPR cameras and generally provide a more privacy-focused alternative.
Like most digital route planners, users enter a start point and an end point for their trip, changing how aggressively they want the software to avoid cameras, according to Carscoops.
The site will then compare a normal route to the more private alternative, suggesting how many miles and minutes a detour would take.
The number of users of the website is increasing, as organizations, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, have warned that Flock’s surveillance camera systems are designed to enable “mass surveillance” and are susceptible to “serious abuse”, according to their own investigations.
Last year, the EFF reported on how more than 50 federal, state and local agencies conducted hundreds of searches across Flock’s national network of surveillance data regarding protest activities over a ten-month period, for example.
With the news that ALPR cameras could soon be linked to connected devices, some sections of the general public are understandably concerned, with one Reddit user commenting: “the only hope for anything is a digital civil rights movement.”
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