The databases may be maintained by the police departments, but often they are maintained by private companies such as Vigilant Technologies. Most of this ALPR data is stored in databases for extended periods of time-often as much as five years. For example, a patrol car may drive around a public parking lot capturing hundreds of vehicles’ plates in minutes. In addition to capturing images of passing vehicles, mobile ALPR cameras are effective at capturing license plates of parked cars. Also, private vendors like Vigilant Solutions capture plate data with mobile ALPRs and then sell that data to police agencies and others. In most cases, these cameras are turned on at the beginning of a shift and not turned off again until the end of the shift. These are often attached to police patrol cars, allowing law enforcement officers to capture data from license plates as they drive around the city throughout their shifts. How ALPRs WorkĪutomated license plate readers can be broadly divided into two categories. So it’s particularly disturbing that automatic license plate readers are used to track and record the movements of millions of ordinary people, even though the overwhelming majority are not connected to a crime. ALPR technology can be used to target drivers who visit sensitive places such as health centers, immigration clinics, gun shops, union halls, protests, or centers of religious worship.ĭrivers have no control over whether their vehicle displays a license plate because the government requires all car, truck, and motorcycle drivers to display license plates in public view. Taken in the aggregate, ALPR data can paint an intimate portrait of a driver’s life and even chill First Amendment protected activity. Law enforcement agencies can choose to share their information with thousands of other agencies. Vendors say that the information collected can be used by police to find out where a plate has been in the past, to determine whether a vehicle was at the scene of a crime, to identify travel patterns, and even to discover vehicles that may be associated with each other. The data, which includes photographs of the vehicle and sometimes its driver and passengers, is then uploaded to a central server. ALPRs automatically capture all license plate numbers that come into view, along with the location, date, and time. For a deeper explanation, please visit this page.Īutomated license plate readers (ALPRs) are high-speed, computer-controlled camera systems that are typically mounted on street poles, streetlights, highway overpasses, mobile trailers, or attached to police squad cars. We also have an office in Texas that is bonded and insured as a title service company.This text was adapted from EFF's Street-Level Surveillance project. Under the brand of Auto Tag of America, we are a fully licensed and bonded facility handling ALL types of registration and title transactions. With Sunshine State Tag Agency’s corporate and branch offices located in Florida and an increased demand to expand into other states, our Arizona office was opened in 1995 and is a authorized 3rd party provider with the State of Arizona. Today, with three-quarters of a million transactions processed annually, SSTA has become the largest private tag agency in Florida. With coordination between the rental car companies, the Tax Collector and the State of Florida, Sunshine State Tag Agency was able to develop an automated system that expedited the communication and transfer of data between the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and SSTA. Sunshine State Tag Agency (SSTA), was founded in 1988 with a vision of becoming the largest private tag agency in the State of Florida.
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