Home › News ›

Seattle Suburb Has its Eyes on License Plates

Posted by: Nate Berg

18 September 2009 - 7:00am

In the Seattle suburb of Medina, security cameras are now capturing all vehicle driving into the city, and using license plate recognition software to check cars and drivers for criminal records.

"Under the 'automatic license plate recognition' project, once a car enters Medina, a camera captures its license-plate number. Within seconds, the number is run through a database.

If a hit comes up for a felony — say, the vehicle was reported stolen or is being driven by a homicide suspect — the information is transmitted instantaneously to police, who can 'leap into action,' said Police Chief Jeffrey Chen."

Officials hope the program will cut down crime, and some have argued that crime prevention outweighs the right to privacy. Civil libertarians call the move an intrusion.

Full Story: Cameras keep track of all cars entering Medina
Source: The Seattle Times, September 16, 2009
»

Comments

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

Privacy Issues

Submitted by Ken Firestone on Fri, 09/18/2009 - 06:07.

If you don't want the police tracking you by your car's license plate number don't drive.

Bookmark and Share
“
If hundreds of people in your community raised reasonable concerns about a planning program you developed, how would you respond? Perhaps you might call a community meeting, or ask community elected officials to reach out to community leaders.
”