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New ALPR Vulnerabilities Prove Mass Surveillance Is a Public Safety Threat [automated license plate readers] (www.eff.org)

submitted 5 months ago by mox@lemmy.sdf.org to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] Antergo@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

So the very first assertion the article makes is that this creates a giant database of sensitive information (presumably the license plates).

That's just straight up not true? How can you write an article about this and make such a basic wrong assertion.

Any reasonable system would work as such: Scan plate -> is it allowed to be here? -> if noy store violation, if yes don't send data

EDIT:

It seems like they really do be scanning every single license plate and storing it for no reason.

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 7 points 5 months ago

Bold of you to assume it's a reasonable system.

[–] conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 4 points 5 months ago

The locations of the license plates. Yes, people's location history is sensitive, and can be used for a lot of harm.

As for storing the information, that's where all the benefit comes from. To be useful, they have to be able to query the database for, eg., kidnapper's car and track where they've been. Without that you don't even have a debate of risk vs reward. It's not downside outweighing upside. It's all downside.