Just last week, we published a story about how companies that maintain automatic license plate readers—and profit from selling the data they collect—are also looking to track electronic signatures from connected devices and even your car’s infotainment hardware with a new product straightforwardly named SignalTrace. And they’re not stopping there.
404media published a report on Tuesday detailing plans to equip schoolhouses with automatic license plate readers and turn the data over to law enforcement. The report is based on leaked documents from BusPatrol, a company that specializes in stop-arm cameras that capture images of drivers illegally passing school buses (“stop-arm” is the proper name of the fold-out stop signs on school buses). The company claims to have over 40,000 of these cameras deployed across 24 states, and at least 30 states permit them. They use AI software to automatically review images and submit them to law enforcement.
As noted by Reason, stop-arm cameras have been criticized for not delivering promised safety benefits, but they’ve nonetheless generated tens of millions of dollars in revenue for the companies that deploy them. And according to the report, BusPatrol now wants to turn those cameras into license plate readers. Instead of activating when a specific law is allegedly being violated, they’ll now reportedly be live at all times, capturing data on any vehicle within sight of a school bus that can then be sold to the law-enforcement agencies BusPatrol already counts as customers.
Civil rights advocates are already concerned that the current, unregulated use of automatic license plate readers amounts to unconstitutional mass surveillance by the government. And the potential for abuse is already being demonstrated. This same week, 404media published additional reporting detailing police officers using the wildly popular camera system Flock to stalk people. Taking humans might not help. Speaking to 404media about the BusPatrol plan, Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union, said that “there’s a real risk that AI will be used to create a hellscape of over-enforcement.”
According to the report, the leaked documents suggest that BusPatrol is aware of the negative views of automatic license plate readers and expects pushback. But an anonymous source with knowledge of the matter told 404media that a new investor is pushing the company to find alternate revenue streams, and that the company is already conducting tests with one school bus, with plans to deploy 100 license-plate-reading cameras on school buses by the end of next month.
If BusPatrol goes ahead with this plan, these cameras would join an already-dense surveillance net that can track people’s movements by reading license plates or the signals from electronic devices. The companies selling these cameras have built a business around selling data to law enforcement, who can then use it despite the fact that it was obtained without a warrant. Because, as security expert Matt Hurewitz explained on The Drivecast, “the laws are way behind” this tech.
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