ACLU: Do Automatic License Plate Readers violate privacy under the 4th Amendment

16 pointsposted 5 hours ago
by StatsAreFun
(aclu.org)

12 Comments

calebio

4 hours ago

While Carpenter v. United States (2018) somewhat changed the rules regarding the "purchase" of third-party data in the context of an investigation, it seems like the ALPRs do not violate the 4th amendment the same way that the decision in Carpenter decided.

Since ALPRs are effectively fixed in a geographic place with gaps and AFAIK do have relatively low retention periods (I need to double check this), they don't offer the same "whole person movement" data that a phone would when described in Carpenter.

Will be interesting to see how this goes, and I'm sure ALPR density may play a part in it, but for now I don't think it violates someone's privacy under the 4th amendment.

This debate also ties heavily into one around the surveillance network created via camera networks like Ring.

garyfirestorm

4 hours ago

A lower resolution tracking is still tracking though. Spatial resolution is low/fixed doesn’t change the fact that I was tagged using the personally identifiable plate and my movements were tracked across the town. A banal traffic monitoring system watching for cars is different than systematically monitoring each individual’s movement even though it’s not very very precise.

If this were an app - Location sharing by default has been set to 25 miles, I’d prefer it to be OFF.

calebio

3 hours ago

> A lower resolution tracking is still tracking though. Spatial resolution is low/fixed doesn’t change the fact that I was tagged using the personally identifiable plate and my movements were tracked across the town.

You're not wrong that it's still tracking. Though, whether it's tracking or not isn't really the thing up for debate here.

In my head it's:

A) Whether you have a reasonable expectation of privacy from a person or company when driving your car with a personally identifiable plate on a public street.

B) Is it your data that is being searched or is it the data of the company who owns the ALPR? Is it a violation of your rights for that data to be searched?

The decision in Carpenter is extremely narrow and doesn't cover things like cameras or non-targeted tower dumps.

It will be interesting to see how this turns out.

It's also similar to the ever growing network of toll road cameras and bridge/highway cameras that capture an image of each car + driver's face.

StatsAreFun

4 hours ago

That's a great point regarding other camera networks like Ring. I'm not sure which ones bother me more.. probably Ring but it's close. Seems like we can't escape being surveilled 24/7 everywhere we go. :(

cwmoore

4 hours ago

The “low-retention period” can be trivially extended, but likely not in your favor.

user

4 hours ago

[deleted]

xhkkffbf

5 hours ago

This sure seems like a stretch. The general model of the fourth amendment depends upon whether there's an expectation of privacy. License plates have been around for 125 years in the US. They were invented by the state and designed to enforce the state's laws. Can someone say with a straight face that they've expected privacy?

Zircom

4 hours ago

The license plate itself isn’t the issue. The state want cars to have an easily visible identifier? Sure, whatever makes sense from a perspective of being able to identify a car and its likely driver at the moment when it's actively being used for a crime or for traffic enforcement.

The problem is that this state mandated visible identifier is then used by them to constantly track where you go. So the question is do you have the right to not have the government tracking your movements and keeping logs of everywhere you’ve been for months or years, especially when you’re not currently suspected of any crime?

calebio

4 hours ago

I think the question may instead be:

> do you have the right to not have [a private company] tracking your movements and keeping logs of everywhere you’ve been for months or years, especially when you’re not currently suspected of any crime?

And

> do you have the right for the government to not purchase that data from [a private company]?

cwmoore

4 hours ago

Depends a lot on whether the applied definitions of “expect” and “privacy” are meaningful, as well as on effects that were hidden for 100 years before new capabilities arose. Machine guns are mostly illegal.

fragmede

4 hours ago

With a straight face, I expect that it is too expensive for the police department to hire a human to stand at every highway on ramp and offramp, and to write down every license plate of every car that drives past them, and then furthermore for it to be infeasible for them to pay a human to search those records and replay every place I've been, for funsies. If I'm Al Capone, that level of effort is warranted, but to be able to do that for everybody and backdated too? Yeah, not OK.

Historically, it has not been possible to do that. That technology makes it possible for that to be possible should be balanced with the fact that it wasn't remotely practical.