Oh Brother, We Know Where Thou Art!

Deep in the City Council Agenda tonight is a decision to accept the offer of two 360-degree cameras to be placed on police vehicles which electronically capture license plate numbers.

There's something troubling and a "big brotherish" to having FV police cruisers equipped with cameras that identifies our property.  Per the Agenda detail linked above, these cameras can check a third party (vendor not State) database and report back to the Officer if a vehicle has a warrant issued to it, or is stolen or linked to an Amber Alert.  It's unclear if this identification extends to the vehicle owner, or perhaps a member of the owner's family at the same address (but it's certainly technically feasible with the right data linkages to the DMV).  It's also unclear if minor issues, like outstanding parking tickets, are also reported back to the cruiser.  The Agenda does not mention the name of the technology's manufacturer -- well-reputed companies like Motorola are in this business.

In effect, the technology (like most advances in computers and cellular communication) enhances the Officer's ability and situational awareness.  Where s/he (or they if partnered) might manually enter an observed license number on their onboard computer, this system handles many at a time as the cameras are contained in the rooftop light bar, scanning in a complete circle and communicating at wifi speed with a database that can be searched in microseconds.

Arguments re. personal privacy have been, says the Agenda detail, dealt with and the technology is legal.  It would be appropriate to learn how well it's worked before we accept it as statistics or analysis from Anaheim (who offers us these systems) is not in the Agenda detail.  That information should be made public and reviewed.  We should also be wary that the third party vendor is competent and legally required to protect the data from being stolen or misused.  E.g., can a cheating spouse's lawyer subpoena it to determine if their partner was not where s/he claimed on a particular evening?

The major negative seen in this technology is that database search results are saved.  This means our vehicle movements are being tracked, and one might see THAT as an invasion of privacy if the police (i.e. the government) can go back through a data warehouse to determine where one's car has been.  The Agenda detail describes how this might be used in an investigation.  If the scanned "hits" of plates and where they were captured (via GPS interface) are not saved, I can see some value in this system.  However, if one's car and location can be tracked at a later date, we should reject the system as an inappropriate invasion of privacy and intrusion on our freedoms.