Neighborhood Notes

The Portland Police Department is testing a new camera system that automatically records the license plate number, time, and location of vehicles encountered while police are on patrol.

The plate number is compared against a database of stolen license plates to help identify and recover stolen vehicles.  The system can even track the movements of a vehicle in the city because all the plate numbers recorded are stored in a database. 

While the usefulness of this system is obvious, it does raise civil liberties concerns.  The biggest question is how will the public be assured that the recorded information will only be used for its intended purpose? Can the information be subpoenaed for use in civil cases?

These systems have been in use in the US for about 5 years, while similar camera systems have been used in Europe for much longer.  Police departments who use the system report success with the system, recovering numerous stolen vehicles and even identifying vehicles with outstanding traffic violations.

It's not the intended use-stolen vehicle recovery-that concerns me.  It's the storage of all license plate numbers the system records.  What assurances do we have that that information will not be used for other purposes? 

It's easy to say, "If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to worry about."  We have a recent example that say otherwise.  In 2006 it was revealed that the NSA had been secretly collecting domestic phone records from the 3 major phone companies.  This is information that was to be used for billing purposes. Our government used it for other purposes and lied to us about it.

Technology can provide some great tools, its always the question of how the tool is used and by whom, that creates suspicion and doubt.

What do you think?