License Plate Scanners in Memphis Nab Open Warrants
The police department in Memphis, TN is widely deploying new automatic license plate scanning technology in it’s police patrol cars that can identify a wide variety of individuals possibly suspected of criminal actions.
The scanners, also known as ALPR (Automatic License Plate Recognition) systems, can flag vehicles by instantly photographing all license plates within visual range, scanning the characters on the tag, and matching it with a real-time on-board database in the police vehicle. If the system flags a plate number that is identified in the database as being wanted for some reason, the officer in the vehicle is instantly notified as to the nearby location of the car, and is prompted to take action.
These systems can flag cars that may be wanted as stolen vehicles, or tagged as amber alerts. They can also match driver/owner data from the Tennessee Department of Safety, or other TN court or law enforcement data to find anyone who may be driving on a suspended license, or have an outstanding warrant for failing to appear in criminal court.
In the article at MyFoxMemphis, they cite a few other tricks that the system can do. They quote a man who was driving a vehicle that wasn’t even registered to him, but was his son’s car. It came up with a hit his outstanding warrant since the vehicle was registered the same name and address as the person sought.
Another interesting technological innovation for this new law enforcement platform is a body heat sensor, to identify how many people are in the vehicle from a distance, if someone is hiding, or if someone escapes down a dark street, their infrared sensors can identity a person fleeing the scene.
People who are concerned with privacy and government intrusion will note that with these systems, the government is tracking thousands of vehicles an hour, who are not sought or suspected of any crime. And anyone with computer knowledge can tell you that data never really goes away. All that information about what cars where it what place (ID-ed by GPS) at what time are stored in a massive database. That data can be searched and back-checked across multiple agencies to form a profile of anyone’s past locations, driving habits, and travel routes.
This technology is only going to get cheaper and more widespread. In the very near future, it will be standard equipment on all police vehicles, like a police radio.
Citizens concerned about government surveillance of their activities should be very concerned about who will have access to all this information, and for what purpose.
