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Posted by sodality2 1 day ago

Show HN: Automated license plate reader coverage in the USA(alpranalysis.com)
Built this over the last few days, based on a Rust codebase that parses the latest ALPR reports from OpenStreetMaps, calculates navigation statistics from every tagged residential building to nearby amenities, and tests each route for intersection with those ALPR cameras (Flock being the most widespread).

These have gotten more controversial in recent months, due to their indiscriminate large scale data collection, with 404 Media publishing many original pieces (https://www.404media.co/tag/flock/) about their adoption and (ab)use across the country. I wanted to use open source datasets to track the rapid expansion, especially per-county, as this data can be crucial for 'deflock' movements to petition counties and city governments to ban and remove them.

In some counties, the tracking becomes so widespread that most people can't go anywhere without being photographed. This includes possibly sensitive areas, like places of worship and medical facilities.

The argument for their legality rests upon the notion that these cameras are equivalent to 'mere observation', but the enormous scope and data sharing agreements in place to share and access millions of records without warrants blurs the lines of the fourth amendment.

121 points | 72 commentspage 2
tamimio 1 day ago||
What about Ring cams? Is there a deRing site? Also, the flock cams are beyond ALPR, I saw a video before about some investigation and one of the things was how flock was used to recognize a car without a plate. Flock is an automated car recognition system, the plate is just part of it. Makes me wonder if having extremely unique or “cloaking” car design will fool it.
duskdozer 23 hours ago|
I swear it's about 75% of houses I come across that have ring (or similar) cameras
xnx 1 day ago||
I'm surprised an app like Citizen hasn't tried to match Flock with a dashcam that automatically shares recordings.
aunty_helen 1 day ago||
Number plates are just one of the privacy tracking technologies. Any modern connected car infotainment system will report and have that data sold or anything that has Bluetooth can be tracked.
1970-01-01 1 day ago||
Bluetooth? You're overthinking this. We've been mandated to carry 4-5 transmitters per vehicle broadcasting their UIDs at 315 MHz since the mid 2000s:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_TPMS

EvanAnderson 1 day ago||
I have an SDR in a facility that is a public parking lot. It picks up TMPS incidentally and I'm definitely able to track individual vehicles.
snarf21 1 day ago|||
Including the camera and microphone in our pocket that pings every cell tower every time we move.
sodality2 1 day ago||
At least as per Carpenter v. United States, that data requires a warrant, not just any cop/LEO in the country typing in a license plate with reasoning as 'investigation'. That's a much better standard.
exhilaration 1 day ago|||
Recent car tracking discussion here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46097624
sodality2 1 day ago||
To an extent this data is within our reach to stop (buy old car, unplug cellular modules, etc). With ALPRs the only option is moving.
DivingForGold 1 day ago||
https://archive.ph/et1uD
onetokeoverthe 1 day ago|
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