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Show HN: Automated license plate reader coverage in the USA

(alpranalysis.com)
239 points sodality2 | 16 comments | 10 Dec 25 17:42 UTC | HN request time: 0.909s | source | bottom

Built this over the last few days, based on a Rust codebase that parses the latest ALPR reports from OpenStreetMaps, calculates navigation statistics from every tagged residential building to nearby amenities, and tests each route for intersection with those ALPR cameras (Flock being the most widespread).

These have gotten more controversial in recent months, due to their indiscriminate large scale data collection, with 404 Media publishing many original pieces (https://www.404media.co/tag/flock/) about their adoption and (ab)use across the country. I wanted to use open source datasets to track the rapid expansion, especially per-county, as this data can be crucial for 'deflock' movements to petition counties and city governments to ban and remove them.

In some counties, the tracking becomes so widespread that most people can't go anywhere without being photographed. This includes possibly sensitive areas, like places of worship and medical facilities.

The argument for their legality rests upon the notion that these cameras are equivalent to 'mere observation', but the enormous scope and data sharing agreements in place to share and access millions of records without warrants blurs the lines of the fourth amendment.

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yannyu ◴[10 Dec 25 20:28 UTC] No.46223289[source]▶
I've thought about this a lot as I see more and more reckless driving in the areas I live in. Surveillance is generally a net negative, but it's also bad when you see people speeding around schools, rolling through stop signs, and running red lights. We seem to have a worst of all situations where traffic is getting increasingly difficult to enforce, driving is getting more dangerous year by year, and we're terrified of government overreach if we add any automation at all to enforcement.

I don't know the solution, but I do know that in the US we've lost 10-15 years of progress when it comes to traffic fatalities.

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1. autoexec ◴[10 Dec 25 21:36 UTC] No.46224218[source]▶
> Surveillance is generally a net negative, but it's also bad when you see people speeding around schools, rolling through stop signs, and running red lights.

The fact that these cameras are already pervasive and the problem of bad drivers hasn't been solved anywhere doesn't give me a lot of hope that these cameras are the solution to that particular problem.

It seems like police can do a lot to increase enforcement without the need of these devices. We have evidence that they've been doing less traffic enforcement so maybe start there. Increasing our standards for driving tests (some of which were eliminated entirely over the first few years of the pandemic) would probably help. Automatically shutting off/disabling or limiting the use of cell phones (all of which come with sensors that can detect when you are going at speeds you'd expect while in cars) might help. Bringing physical buttons and dials back to cars instead of burying common functions in touchscreen menus might help.

There's a whole lot of places to look for solutions to safer roads before we have to resort to tracking everyone's movements at all times.

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2. nerdsniper ◴[11 Dec 25 00:20 UTC] No.46226031[source]▶
> Automatically shutting off/disabling or limiting the use of cell phones (all of which come with sensors that can detect when you are going at speeds you'd expect while in cars) might help.

I can’t think of a way to implement this that wouldn’t ban passengers from using their phone while riding in a vehicle. Which could be even a bus or limousine.

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3. LeifCarrotson ◴[11 Dec 25 00:27 UTC] No.46226089[source]▶
I don't disagree, but I can totally imagine a society where this inability is perfectly acceptable because it severely reduces the #1 killer of people from 5-55yo. I don't think we live in that society, if Apple and Google flipped a switch tomorrow to do that people would freak out, but I could imagine a rational, fictional society that had different shared values.
4. mikem170 ◴[11 Dec 25 00:32 UTC] No.46226121[source]▶
A lot of people would be fine with that. Drivers are impaired while on the phone, even hands-free. Not to mention texting while driving!

I kind of picture the cellular telcos doing this. Maybe buses and trains come with wifi hotspots allowed to connect. Otherwise auto passengers could use their devices offline, maybe read an ebook or something. Not the end of the world.

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5. dylan604 ◴[11 Dec 25 01:05 UTC] No.46226360{3}[source]▶
Lots of cars now come with a WiFi hot spot as part of their offerings. There's no way to prevent the driver from also connecting to it and circumventing whatever ill conceived notion this is
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6. autoexec ◴[11 Dec 25 01:10 UTC] No.46226401[source]▶
Not entirely. The phones can defect if there are other phones nearby, so a single phone in a car on a highway going 75mph could be assumed to be a driver, but that is still just an assumption.
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7. autoexec ◴[11 Dec 25 01:14 UTC] No.46226442{4}[source]▶
Even connected to wifi a cell phone canstill use the wireless network. Even airplane more won't actually stop your phone from connecting anymore. GPS data can also be transmitted in the background over wifi back to apple/google and/or the device manufacturer.

If they really wanted to push this they could do it directly in the baseband chipset and bypass the OS entirely when deciding to lock down the device to some kind of "travel mode" with limited functionality (such as no texting or no browser)

Not that I'm advocating for that sort of thing, but it's good to keep in mind that we don't really own the cellular devices we pay for and that even in the rare case we have root we can't stop them from doing what they want to our devices as long as they control the closed hardware.

8. mikem170 ◴[11 Dec 25 03:39 UTC] No.46227378{4}[source]▶
I mentioned buses and trains, and was thinking that only those mobile wifi hotspots would be permitted, whitelisted for 5g service. Hotspots in (human driven) cars would not. That might encourage some people to take the bus?

I agree with the other poster about this being more workable in a fictional society with different shared values.

9. crapple8430 ◴[11 Dec 25 03:54 UTC] No.46227450{3}[source]▶
And the driver will just carry two phones, and be even more distracted than before. Cool
10. fragmede ◴[11 Dec 25 07:26 UTC] No.46228625[source]▶
The answer is to take the human out of the equation, and have the computer drive. Comma.ai works well enough. Tesla is mostly there. Waymo works.
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11. 01HNNWZ0MV43FF ◴[11 Dec 25 07:30 UTC] No.46228643[source]▶
Which is also bad for privacy
12. potato3732842 ◴[11 Dec 25 11:17 UTC] No.46230015[source]▶
The standards for evidince, processes for enforcement and court side of things are not set up for cheap enforcement of "that clearly ain't right" behavior. They're set up for revenue enforcement of easy to prove but not necessarily bad in abstract offenses.

Police can't substantially increase enforcement overall because that would just cause bad political optics, say nothing of stops that needlessly escalate to being newsworthy in a bad way. They'd necessarily issue a hundred petty bullshit tickets for every deserved ticket for legitimately bad behavior. It just wouldn't work. It would be like trying to plow a field with the ripper on the back of a bulldozer. It kinda looks similar but it's wrong for the job.

And all of this is based on the assumption that we're trying to enforce things that the broad public agrees need strict enforcement, not whatever the original comment wants.

13. ChrisMarshallNY ◴[11 Dec 25 13:28 UTC] No.46231114[source]▶
In the US, a traffic ticket is an indictment of a crime (says it on the ticket. I wish I didn't know that fact).

That means that you have a right to trial/appeal, and the accuser (the cop) needs to show up, if you request a trial.

Traffic cameras can't accuse you of a crime, so they are considered civil infractions (no points, but also means they are a bitch to appeal). They can issue realtime civil citations, though.

ALPRS can't do either. They are forensic tools; not enforcement tools.

I believe in the UK, a camera can convict you of a crime, so they can issue severe tickets. They wouldn't really be able to do that, in the US.

In my county (Suffolk, NY), they just stopped all the redlight cameras. I doubt they would do so for ALPRs.

Also, I think some ALPRs are private. There's a shopping center, not too far from here, that's in a relatively high-crime neighborhood. They have cameras and ALPRs, all over the parking lots.

14. LocalH ◴[11 Dec 25 15:21 UTC] No.46232480{3}[source]▶
Is a driver impaired if they are using their phone to stream music (or screen-off Youtube listening) to their car while driving?
15. jollyllama ◴[11 Dec 25 15:28 UTC] No.46232565[source]▶
This! Things keep getting worse and worse, and we keep getting more surveillance. It's clearly not the answer!
16. ericmcer ◴[11 Dec 25 22:15 UTC] No.46238004[source]▶
They have done automated enforcement a few times and it always sucks because the systems don't use discretion.

Someone going 40 in a 30 and swerving around other cars gets treated the same as someone going 40 when the road is empty. Someone slowing to 1-2mph before safely rolling through a stop sign get the same ding as someone blowing through it at 30mph.

If AIs can somehow learn how to take all this footage and enforce the spirit of the law (citing dangerous driving) instead of the letter I will fully support it.