In 2019 alone, just 82 agencies collected more than 1 billion license plate scans using ALPRs. Yet, 99.9% of this surveillance data was not actively related to an investigation when it was collected. Nevertheless, law enforcement agencies stockpile this data, often for years, and often share the data with hundreds of agencies around the country.
This means that law enforcement agencies have built massive databases that document our travel patterns, regardless of whether we’re under suspicion. With a few keystrokes, a police officer can generate a list of places a vehicle has been seen, with few safeguards and little oversight.
Read the full article at The Washington Gazette.