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Comment by derbOac

1 day ago

"Unlawfully scanning license plates"? What does that even mean?

Like searching a vehicle database? That's available to all sorts of people, like auto body repair shops.

Taking a photo of a license plate? Nothing illegal about that.

32 comments

derbOac

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andreygrehov  1 day ago

You're confusing 'seeing a license plate' with 'querying restricted databases'.

Taking a photo is legal. Running plates through law-enforcement/ALPR systems is not, and auto body shops don't have that access.

Real-time identification != observation - it implies unauthorized data access.

  • plorg  1 day ago

    Journalists doing ride alongs have already identified the system and it doesn't really on "restricted databases", they rely on observation and multiple attestation. In any case, there are indeed commercial services for looking up license plate data, and they rely on watching the notices that are published when you register your vehicle. It's the same reason why you receive all sorts of scammy warranty "notices" when you buy a car.

    In fact the first clue that they look for is having Illinois Permanent plates because that is a strong indicator that they are using rental vehicles. That doesn't take a database, it's just a strong signal that can be confirmed by other evidence.

  • anigbrowl  20 hours ago

    If that was what you meant, you should have said that. Do you have any actual evidence this is happening, or are you just confusing possibility with probability?

    • tptacek  16 hours ago

      I don't buy the claim that it's happening, but they were pretty clearly talking about the lookups, not the photos. They started off by mentioning "insiders".