The Expert Podcast

The next time you're driving down the street and you see a police car a tow truck, even an Uber vehicle. Look to see if you notice. Little devices like you see on the top of this. police car next to the life See these little boxes These look like they're a signal lights but they're not These are actually cameras These are called ALPRs automated license plate readers, or automated license plate recognition. And what are these What do they do Well, they are cameras and they're taking photos or video of a car. of the of their surroundings, but they're not really focusing on pictures and images of the vehicle. What they're actually doing is reading the text on your license plate. For example, it'll take photos like this. And if you just looked at a picture you know you as a human can say seven X X, B 6, 8, 2. But a photo in a computer Isn't the same as texts. What these cameras are doing. Is taking this photo in decoding license plates into the actual text. Once that's done, it can create a database of all the places where that license plate has been seen. Date, timestamp, location. GPS. Right. So. ALPRs are very common Where are the use and what is done with the data? Well, The first thing to keep in mind is…these ALP ours can be anywhere You might think Well they're on police cars while they are on police cars. But they're also on traffic cameras They're also on tow trucks and Uber cars And we'll tell you why they're on those vehicles. They may also be on gate entrances to subdivisions or gated entrances to parking lots. And the reason why is because sometimes they're used for billing, for example tollbooth cameras. Get your license plate and they put into a database to charge you a toll. Right. The reason that they are on police cars is so this police car can be driving down the street. The police officer in that vehicle the law enforcement officer does not have to type in every car that they see to check if it's stolen if the person's wanted, if there's a re if the registration is expired, they could just drive down the street. The cameras can ingest all the license plates that it sees That's why, if you notice on that photo there on all four corners of the car it can see the ones coming at them the ones behind them the ones in other lanes…The computer can read these plates, hundreds thousands at a time. Thousands in a minute. And automatically check each one of those. License plate numbers instantly. If. One of them pops up as a hit…Stolen car. Wanted driver…expired registration. Expired insurance. Then it can put a notice on the screen for that police officer? To say Hey, that red Honda you drove by a minute ago. Stolen car. Right. And then it'll flash on the screen where it was what direction and then they'll show a picture of it. The police officer can drive his car They can check out what they're doing on patrol and let the computer do all the work for checking the license plates. Why would a tow truck have that on their vehicle Well, tow trucks have databases that are connected to cars that are out for repossession…If you are a repossession company in the old days it used to be, well the bank would call you up and say, Joe Schmo didn't pay his car loan He's got a red Honda Here's the plate number go pick it up at their house Well, Nowadays people who are out for repossession they hide their cars they put it in the garage. They put it in the backyard put it behind the gate. So it's hard to repossess vehicles. So now what happens is the tow truck driver. As they're driving they're not running every plate. They have an ALPR. just like the police. If a car drives by that's out for repo boom pops up on their screen…And they can follow that car to where it parks. At this grocery store. At a mall at a shopping center at their employment and just go pick it up cause it's outside So ALP ours can be used that way. Uber drivers can make some extra money. By putting the repossession data computers in their vehicles. Now they can't repossess the car. But now that the bank knows where this car is driving, it gives them an idea of where they can maybe send a tow truck to go pick it up. Back to law enforcement law enforcement uses this for tracking now at the same time, even if a car is not wanted not stolen. It could be used to help solve crimes. If there's a crime that occurs in a certain place. There's a shooting. A robbery. And assault. And…they need witnesses. What they'll do is they'll go back and rewind their ALPR to that place that location or nearby and find all the cars that are ingressing or egressing that location. And maybe those people have a dash cam Maybe they saw something and you'll get contacted…So automated license plate readers are a way for many agencies to identify where cars were at a certain time Now there's a lot of privacy issues with this. A lot of privacy organizations are against using ALPRs because of the fact that it could be used for. Tracking somebody's location. Without their knowledge. And there's a lot of court cases that have been fought and still being fought about this. Tell us what your thoughts are about the use of this technology. What about access to a subdivision? Some gated communities only allow access to certain license plates unless you have somebody buzz you in. That may be something that is a legitimate use but there still could be privacy issues for that use as well. Now what about in the private sector? Well you as a private citizen, there's no reason In most cases you couldn't get an ALPR put it on your house. Put it on a street corner put it on your business and just track every car that drives by…And. That would be a way to know the license plate Now you wouldn't be able to look up the owner. But it would be a way to get some demographics possibly on a business area. At the same time there are some companies that sell. Records. Of…license plates that were shown at a certain location. Private investigators, insurance companies. repair shops. They can use this information to know where vehicles are located In fact, Some insurance companies are using this. to process claims. If you are an insured on your vehicle and you have a garaging address let's say 12 main street in. In salt lake city Utah. Where there's low insurance rates, but they see that your car is always being used in Miami Florida. They're going to ask well why is your car in Miami Florida if you're supposedly living in salt lake city Utah So if you have a crash in Miami Florida, They might say well we're denying your claim because you said it was garaged in salt lake city Utah but in reality, it's in Miami Florida, right? So this technology has a lot of uses and a lot of future uses. To track vehicles It's almost like. GPS with a number of cameras that are out there right now, everywhere you drive you're going to drive by a camera at some point. If any of these cameras are ALPR cameras. Now your location your identity is known, and that can be mixed with many other things If you if somebody at a shopping center puts it at their entrance, now they know all the shoppers and all the customers of their shopping center. So let us know what your thoughts are. How does this affect you One other thing to keep in mind is if you are using some registration from another state for. An advantage. Save taxes Maybe some states don't have as…stringent of inspection. A lot of people that are living in California registered their cars elsewhere because California has severe smog and inspection laws. And maybe you want to register somewhere else. ALPRs are used to defeat this. So be aware that this may be a covert hidden way. That the government's finding out. Wherein when you are, even without your knowledge.