I don't understand why a police cruiser can sit in a public space (or even a private one) and write down licence plates and descriptions of passers-by with pen and paper, or record everything around them with dashcams and bodycams for later use, but when it comes to cameras on a pole this would require a warrant.

Going back through police officers' notes or cruiser dash cam videos and tracking a car's movements by its plate is not an illegal search, is it? Just cumbersome, expensive and likely ineffective. Well, now it's not. A difference in degree (of usefulness and speed), not in kind.

That doesn't seem untenable at all. It's perfectly consistent with legal precedent and current practice.

There are MANY cases where the government legitimately possesses personal information that could potentially cause harm if revealed, for operational as well as public safety purposes. Vehicle registration and drivers license records, for example.

This personal information is typically exempt from FOIA laws. I can't go FOIA vehicle registration records to look up where a certain driver lives, but the state and police officers do have access to that information.

A search involves access without consent. Police don't need a search warrant to perform a search with the consent of the owner. In the case of cell phone data the search is without the consent of the data owner (the phone company). In this case the municipality is collecting public-view data themselves, not without the consent of the collector, so there's no search warrant issue.

> Either it needs a warrant or it’s fully open and people can start creating websites showing the movements of local politicians.

This is how things get regulated. I'm still waiting for a data broker breach which exposes the particulars of congress. That would be quite the shakeup. I think it will happen eventually.

I'll toss out another alternative idea. Not that I'm against the warrant requirement exactly but I just think it becomes a lot more fuzzy since the data will be managed by private companies that only accumulated it because they already have other ways to monatize it. And it's only one tool that they have to harass people.

This is fundamentally a police officer problem. You make it a felony and a terminable offense. You make all or part of the Brady List public and this automatically places an officer on it. ALPRs are just one tool for a police officer to stalk someone, they could just as well park outside their house or place of work and follow them around or do other things. We could require warrants to get the ALPR data but we'd still have these jerks pretending in to protect and serve.

In my perfect world, if we had an Amber alert or we knew there was a particularly violent criminal driving a specific car with a specfic license plate, I think it would be a step forward if all of the information was made available quickly and there was a quick and safe capture. Judges can issue warrants pretty quickly when motivated. Likewise, if some officer is stalking his ex-wife or something, cutting off the license plates is a nice step but I'd rather him not be involved in law enforcement at all.

I'd love for these datasets to be fully audited, but I suspect industry will balk that the very use of it is proprietary.

I think here what's interesting is that it fundamentally speaks to data privilege. There are two ways that police/lawyers access data. The first way is they request the data to be provided, usually in civil cases it is kind of "give me the data please otherwise I will subpoena you and that's a headache for everyone" and for LEO, it's give me this data to solve a crime otherwise I will get it anyways via a warrant.

The lines start to get very blurry when dealing with things like private ALPRs and Ring/Nest etc. because they have the policy of if a LEO asks we provide (in the case of Ring LEOs have access to pretty much all doorbell cameras) but this is really problematic because although it's an attempt at good faith, they are essentially circumventing the legal process of acquiring this data for investigation since involving a judge is a cumbersome process.

But now we have a problem, LEOs are exercising essentially extrajudicial authority by having access to this data. The authority is provided to them by the law (hence why your average joe schmoe can't get this data) but they do not use the mechanisms provided to them to actually get that data. So all data should be provided to anyone regardless of status but if you don't have a lawyer and a reason in a civil case you get told to kick rocks

It needs to be both open and closed by warrant. Cars aren't people so you aren't necessarily tracking whoever is riding that car, which can be done protecting the identity of the driver, but if the car is being watched as part of a larger investigation against an individual, then it needs a warrant.

There's nothing stopping you from buying an LPR and publishing the data. Also, with a PI license, you (might) be able to access the nationwide Nlets LPR Index.

https://nlets.org/resources/blog/nlets-news-our-nationwide-l...

How is it different from putting out an all-points bulletin? Basically doesn't it just expand the size of the police force and make their eyeballs on the road more accurate?

> Either it needs a warrant or it’s fully open and people can start creating websites showing the movements of local politicians.

I want this data to require a warrant to access. Having said that, I agree that it should be open to everyone if warrants aren't required.

I've said this for years and I almost always get the "But stalkers!" pushback.

I think "But stalkers!" can be answered with applications to enable individuals to track their stalkers themselves. Since the police have no duty to protect I'd argue tracking a stalker yourself is probably a better solution anyway.

Obviously, letting everyone track everyone is not ideal. I assume this is the intent of your proposal.

> Either it needs a warrant or it’s fully open and people can start creating websites showing the movements of local politicians.

What?

There is a lot of information privy to police that should not be accessible to anyone. This is such a ridiculous standard. I would want police to know where I live and contact information of my emergency contact for instance, but I wouldn't want that accessible to others.

> There’s been too many cases of police officers stalking exes, poking around the data for fun and such so it’s clear police cannot be trusted with the data without better court oversight.

There have been more cases of "someone broke into my house at exactly [time]. Can you track their license plate and track them down" that I'm willing to make that tradeoff. Those police that abuse their power should be brought to justice and its obviously against policies, but to simply remove their ability to effectively do their job is not the answer

Problem is that Flock CEO still has dirtbag access. Didn't he spy on someone at a conference in public view as part of a presentation of the technology?

No, not a warrant --but what they should have is an tamper-evident logs with HIPAA-like consequences for abuse. In other words, if you have a case where doing registration plate searches can help, you have a policing reason to search.

Willy-nilly search for relatives, lovers, love-interests, rivals, etc. would potentially be a fireable offence --like HIPAA violations. There is no technical reason there could not be technical controls preventing abuses.