Americans are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the rapid expansion of automated license-plate readers, marking a striking reversal in public attitudes toward a technology that police departments have promoted as an important crime-fighting tool. A new nationwide survey shows that concerns about privacy, government surveillance and potential police abuse are beginning to outweigh promises of greater public safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the center of the controversy is Flock Safety, whose artificial-intelligence-powered cameras photograph passing vehicles, identify license plates and store information that law-enforcement agencies can search during investigations. Since 2017, more than 120,000 Flock cameras have been installed around the United States, creating an enormous network capable of documenting where vehicles travel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But public opinion is changing rapidly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A YouGov survey of approximately 20,000 Americans, found that 46% opposed having the cameras in their communities, compared with 38% who supported them. That represents a major shift from the previous year, when supporters outnumbered opponents. Respondents also increasingly said the technology would not make them feel safer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The changing mood is already affecting local governments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Centerton, Arkansas, city council member Justin Cowgur initially supported installing Flock cameras because he believed they could help an understaffed police department fight crime. Two years later, after residents raised concerns about privacy and possible misuse of their information, Cowgur and other council members unanimously voted to cancel the city’s contract.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Similar decisions are appearing nationwide. Communities in Arizona, Texas, New Mexico and other states have recently reconsidered or terminated agreements involving automated license-plate readers. Tempe, Arizona, for example, shut down its network despite acknowledging that the cameras had helped police investigations, concluding that the potential for misuse threatened public trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A major reason for the backlash is evidence that law-enforcement personnel have sometimes used license-plate databases improperly. Previous reports identified dozens of officers accused, charged or convicted of using Flock or similar systems for unauthorized purposes, including tracking romantic partners or former spouses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Privacy advocates argue that the technology creates something fundamentally different from traditional police observation. A single camera recording a vehicle on a public road may reveal relatively little. But thousands of interconnected cameras can potentially reconstruct a person’s movements\u2014showing visits to homes, workplaces, medical facilities, religious institutions, political events or other sensitive locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another concern is that officers generally do not need a warrant to search these databases. Rules also vary considerably between states and police departments. Only a minority of states require regular audits of license-plate-reader searches, creating questions about who is responsible for detecting abuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Political concern is increasingly bipartisan. Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri recently launched an investigation into Flock’s network, questioning who can access Americans’ vehicle-location information and warning about the emergence of a nationwide surveillance infrastructure. Civil-liberties organizations have raised similar concerns from the opposite side of the political spectrum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Flock has responded by announcing stronger safeguards. The company said officers will be required to associate searches with criminal case numbers, searches will receive automated reviews for abnormal activity, and the default data-retention period will be reduced from 30 days to seven days. Police departments will also receive additional control over information-sharing arrangements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The company maintains that its technology has helped law enforcement solve serious crimes and locate missing people. Police departments defending the cameras similarly argue that automated plate readers can quickly identify stolen vehicles, locate suspects and provide investigators with leads that would otherwise take significant time and manpower to develop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The debate therefore presents Americans with a difficult trade-off between security and privacy. License-plate readers can give police powerful investigative capabilities, but the same technology can create detailed records of ordinary citizens who are not suspected of committing any crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What began as a relatively obscure police technology is now developing into a national political and constitutional debate. As communities cancel contracts, lawmakers demand stronger protections and Americans become increasingly skeptical, the central question is shifting from whether license-plate cameras can help solve crimes to how much surveillance Americans are willing to accept in exchange for greater security.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Americans are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the rapid expansion of automated license-plate readers, marking a striking reversal in public attitudes toward a technology that police departments have promoted as an important crime-fighting tool. A new nationwide survey shows that concerns about privacy, government surveillance and potential police abuse are beginning to outweigh promises of greater […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10801,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3901,3905,3902],"tags":[421,193,1219,1276,3954],"class_list":["post-10806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-real-state","category-tech","tag-ai","tag-news","tag-trump","tag-us","tag-vigilance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10806"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10807,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10806\/revisions\/10807"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}