Automatic license plate recognition eliminates the need to manually read every car registration number, significantly as vehicles speed past. Moreover, the technology records license plates in real-time and can help provide traffic insights. Accuracy plays a crucial role in law enforcement and public safety. Errors can waste valuable time spent protecting and serving the community.
Deterrence
As technology evolves, new solutions emerge to help law enforcement departments with routine and repetitive tasks so they can focus on other pressing matters. This enables first responders to work smarter, not harder while improving overall performance and efficiency in the field. Nevertheless, technology must be used wisely. This means automatic license plate recognition systems must be accurate, bias-free, and protect established legal values and constitutional rights. This is why many states have passed laws regulating the use of ALPRs and the data they generate. A significant concern with the help of these devices is their high error rates. For instance, a driver may be pulled over for speeding even though their vehicle has not exceeded the limit. The system has not matched their plate to a police hot list. In addition, long-term data retention from stationary or mobile ALPR systems allows police to track a person’s movements over time. This can reveal much information about an individual, including past residences, work locations, and other private details. To mitigate this, impose strict limits on the use of ALPRs. For example, when an officer individually runs a plate, only the registration number and whether or not it is on a police hot list should be revealed.
Accuracy
A license plate recognition system identifies vehicles by using machine learning and computer vision to recognize the shape of the vehicle’s front and rear plates, verify their sequence and read them as text. This is called template matching. The system also captures the vehicle’s make and model. It can scan thousands of plates in a minute, and some vendors boast that their dataset contains more than 6.5 billion scans. In addition to the benefits mentioned above, these systems can help police departments identify stolen vehicles, locate missing persons and recover stolen cars. They can also track criminal suspects, including those wanted for high-profile crimes like murder or robbery. However, several studies have highlighted serious concerns about the accuracy and potential misuse of ALPRs. They can be inaccurate; even if accurate, they can be subject to human error, leading to wrongful stops.
Furthermore, these systems collect data on millions of ordinary people and store it in databases accessible to police officers. The information can paint a detailed picture of an individual’s daily life, tracking past movements and possibly predicting future ones, all without a warrant or probable cause. Ultimately, using ALPR technology is a complex issue that requires careful thought and scrutiny from law enforcement agencies and lawmakers. We must balance the need for improved safety and security with a concern for civil liberties and privacy.
Security
If officers have to pause and run plates manually, it can take the time that could be spent on the road. ALPRs instantly verify a license plate to save officers valuable time. In addition, ANPR can also capture additional information like the vehicle’s make and model. This gives officers another tool for rapid identity verification, especially in a busy street where it may be challenging to see a license plate. Besides saving officers time, a centralized database of all plate readings allows departments to monitor traffic patterns for trends and anomalies. This data can help police departments make better decisions for patrolling, identifying hot spots, or implementing new strategies. However, while it can be a powerful deterrent to criminal activity, the technology is not foolproof. An officer can misread a plate, which can have dire consequences. Still, the sheer scope of information that ALPRs can collect and store magnifies privacy concerns. It can allow police to conduct dragnet surveillance of millions of people.
Privacy
Some people are concerned that the indiscriminate nature of the data collected by automatic license plate recognition systems will paint a comprehensive picture of their lives, with details like where they parked their car in front of their house and where they have visited over time. This is not unlike a person’s cell phone, which generates records by being powered on and connected to the network. Moreover, the accumulated data can be used for retroactive searches of citizens without warrants supported by probable cause. These searches will reveal extensive and sensitive accounts of a citizen’s movements in ways that are difficult to avoid, even by ceasing all travel altogether. Additionally, some private companies can access this information through license plate reader databases maintained by law enforcement agencies. They use the information for various purposes, including automating toll collection and pollution research. Private individuals and neighborhood associations also buy their own ALPR systems for home or community security and can maintain their hot lists of flagged license plates. As technology evolves, public safety organizations must use the tools available to improve their operations and serve their communities.
