Flock Safety has put up more than 100,000 Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) across the United States.
These ALPRs read and log every license plate that passes it, communicating the information it collects to local law-enforcement agencies and connected databases, often using AI to enforce traffic laws, find stolen vehicles, or locate individuals. In large cities, it seems that these cameras are at every intersection.
There are other companies like Genetec and Axis, with Flock being the most prevalent in the United States. DeFlock maintains a map of these cameras with data on each one.
To learn more about the inherent dangers of ALPRs, or how they have been abused by stalkers, view DeFlock's website.
Military Level Surveillance on US Citizens
What started out with license plates has grown into a vehicular fingerprint tracker that can tell not only who owns the vehicle, but what particular person is driving that car at any given time.
Flock’s cameras already do more than read plates, they identify vehicle characteristics such as make, model, color, dents, bumper stickers, and other visible traits. Beyond this, law-enforcement has taken a new step in identifying the specific driver of a car using SIGINT or Signal Intelligence.
SIGINT is the practice of intercepting the electronic signals constantly being emitted from devices. These new devices, squares you can see hanging from traffic lights, take a snapshot of all the devices in your vehicle using Bluetooth. From there, time stamp and distance information allows that snapshot to be linked to your license plate.
The idea is simple, while 70 cars in 100 may contain iPhones, only one will have an iPhone 13, an aftermarket CarPlay device, AirPods, an apple watch, a key finder, and the license plate ABC-1234. This collection of data serves as an electronic fingerprint. From there, a profile of each driver of the vehicle can be curated: driver A carries an Apple Watch and an iPhone 16; driver B carries an older generation Apple Watch and an iPhone 14, allowing enforcement to tell who is driving what car at all times.
This is the type of technology that the US uses in foreign environments to track terrorists, criminals, and developing threats to national security or American assets in foreign countries.
Journalists and Activists Arrested in Texas
There are places that may not be illegal to visit, but I would still rather not anyone be able to find out exactly where or when I'm going.
I could name places like this forever, an immigration clinic, mosque, union office, a journalists home (as a source), protest, or political meeting. An individual visiting these places, with SIGINT data to prove exactly when and via what route, can reveal enough to change how a government agency, law-enforcement office, employer, landlord, or data buyer sees that person.
On Tuesday, June 23, eight activists were sentenced to multi-decade sentences in response to events that occurred while protesting the Prairieland immigration detention center in Alvarado, Texas. Despite most of the defendants not knowing each other, prosecutors argued that the group launched a premeditated terror attack on the detention facility inspired by antifa ideology. While one defendant was charged with discharging a firearm, the defendants have denied 'antifa' affiliations. Daniel Estrada, who did not even attend the protest, received a 30-year sentence. This is discouraging for activists.
Reporter Don Lemon being arrested earlier this year for "conspiracy" and "interfering with the First Amendment rights of worshipers" during his coverage of an anti-immigration enforcement protest is discouraging for journalists.
The precedent being set is simple: location, device, and movement data can become part of a story later used to convict you. That being said, it should be concerning the amount of money that governments are investing in being able to tell exactly where every citizen is at all times and what they're doing.
This Does Not Require a Breach
The issue with this form of passive data collection is that the consequences are intended, and abuse does not necessarily require a "hack" or breach in the traditional sense.
This is what makes surveillance so difficult to fight, the harm does not come from a failure of the system, but rather from the system doing exactly what it was built to do.
The Ultimate Social Media Profile
ALPRs and SIGINT systems are a symptom of a much larger issue: a government's desire to profile and track every one of its citizens. The question is not whether every ALPR scan leads to abuse. The question is whether democratic societies should allow ordinary movement to become permanently searchable.
These additions to the surveillance apparatus are just that, additions. They work together with ad-tech agencies, data brokers, and commercial contractors like Palantir to provide governments and third-parties with profiles on what car you drive, what devices you own, what sports teams you like, what humanitarian causes you believe in, where you go and when, who goes with you, who you talk to, and so much more.
On a good day, this information is used to sell you a new pair of shoes.
On every other day, this information fuels predictive policing, civil-rights infringements, arrests, deportations, unnecessary interactions with law enforcement, and the building of the most comprehensive database of the global population we've ever seen.
