License plate readers: boon, bane, or both?

Here’s another technology with a huge potential for good and a disturbing probability of abuse.

A recent story in the Washington Post describes how license plate readers are being used in law enforcement. These devices simply capture your license number as you drive by. I took advantage of the technology myself recently when I used a tollway and a bill magically appeared a couple of weeks later even though I never stopped. The issue isn’t that the technology can do good.

The technology first came to the Washington region in 2004 as a pilot program. During an early test, members of the Washington Area Vehicle Enforcement Unit recovered eight cars, found 12 stolen license plates and made three arrests in a single shift.

Having the technology during the Washington area sniper shootings in 2002 might have stopped the attacks sooner, detectives said, because police could have checked whether any particular car was showing up at each of the shooting sites.

The issue is lack of any control. There are no rules and no consistency on how long the data is stored, how it’s aggregated, who has access, and what it can be used for.

The DC area is apparently ahead of the rest of the country in implementation, with 27 million reads a year for the Maryland State Police alone. Doubtless as word spreads other geographic areas will jump on the bandwagon. There are no easy answers here, but right now this data is not controlled by any consistent oversight. At least the debate needs to take place.