Posted on 01/26/2018 12:31:20 PM PST by MarchonDC09122009
ICE has struck a deal to track license plates across the US
https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/26/16932350/ice-immigration-customs-license-plate-recognition-contract-vigilant-solutions
Exclusive: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US
By Russell Brandom@russellbrandom Jan 26, 2018, 8:04am EST
SHAREMORE
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has officially gained agency-wide access to a nationwide license plate recognition database, according to a contract finalized earlier this month. The system gives the agency access to billions of license plate records and new powers of real-time location tracking, raising significant concerns from civil libertarians.
The source of the data is not named in the contract, but an ICE representative said the data came from Vigilant Solutions, the leading network for license plate recognition data. “Like most other law enforcement agencies, ICE uses information obtained from license plate readers as one tool in support of its investigations,” spokesperson Dani Bennett said in a statement. “ICE is not seeking to build a license plate reader database, and will not collect nor contribute any data to a national public or private database through this contract.” (Vigilant did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)
While it collects few photos itself, Vigilant Solutions has amassed a database of more than 2 billion license plate photos by ingesting data from partners like vehicle repossession agencies and other private groups. Vigilant also partners with local law enforcement agencies, often collecting even more data from camera-equipped police cars. The result is a massive vehicle-tracking network generating as many as 100 million sightings per month, each tagged with a date, time, and GPS coordinates of the sighting.
“ARE WE AS A SOCIETY ... WILLING TO LET OUR GOVERNMENT CREATE AN INFRASTRUCTURE THAT WILL TRACK ALL OF US?”
ICE agents would be able to query that database in two ways. A historical search would turn up every place a given license plate has been spotted in the last five years, a detailed record of the target’s movements. That data could be used to find a given subject’s residence or even identify associates if a given car is regularly spotted in a specific parking lot.
“Knowing the previous locations of a vehicle can help determine the whereabouts of subjects of criminal investigations or priority aliens to facilitate their interdiction and removal,” an official privacy assessment explains. “In some cases, when other leads have gone cold, the availability of commercial LPR data may be the only viable way to find a subject.”
ICE agents can also receive instantaneous email alerts whenever a new record of a particular plate is found — a system known internally as a “hot list.” (The same alerts can also be funneled to the Vigilant’s iOS app.) According to the privacy assessment, as many as 2,500 license plates could be uploaded to the hot list in a single batch, although the assessment does not detail how often new batches can be added. With sightings flooding in from police dashcams and stationary readers on bridges and toll booths, it would be hard for anyone on the list to stay unnoticed for long.
Those powers are particularly troubling given ICE’s recent move to expand deportations beyond criminal offenders, fueling concerns of politically motivated enforcement. In California, state officials have braced for rumored deportation sweeps targeted at sanctuary cities. In New York, community leaders say they’ve been specifically targeted for deportationas a result of their activism. With automated license plate recognition, that targeting would only grow more powerful.
For civil liberties groups, the implications go far beyond immigration. “There are people circulating in our society who are undocumented,” says senior policy analyst Jay Stanley, who studies license plate readers with the ACLU. “Are we as a society, out of our desire to find those people, willing to let our government create an infrastructure that will track all of us?”
The new license plate reader contract comes after years of internal lobbying by the agency. ICE first tested Vigilant’s system in 2012, gauging how effective it was at locating undocumented immigrants. Two years later, the agency issued an open solicitation for the technology, sparking an outcry from civil liberties group. Homeland Security secretary Jeh Johnson canceled the solicitation shortly afterward, citing privacy concerns, although two field offices subsequently formed rogue contracts with Vigilant in apparent violation of Johnson’s policy. In 2015, Homeland Security issued another call for bids, although an ICE representative said no contract resulted from that solicitation.
As a result, this new contract is the first agency-wide contract ICE has completed with the company, a fact that is reflected in accompanying documents. On December 27th, 2017, Homeland Security issued an updated privacy assessment of license plate reader technology, a move it explained was necessary because “ICE has now entered into a contract with a vendor.”
The new system places some limits on ICE surveillance, but not enough to quiet privacy concerns. Unlike many agencies, ICE won’t upload new data to Vigilant’s system but simply scan through the data that’s already there. In practical terms, that means driving past a Vigilant-linked camera might flag a car to ICE, but driving past an ICE camera won’t flag a car to everyone else using the system. License plates on the hot list will also expire after one year, and the system retains extensive audit logs to help supervisors trace back any abuse of the system.
Still, the biggest concern for critics is the sheer scale of Vigilant’s network, assembled almost entirely outside of public accountability. “If ICE were to propose a system that would do what Vigilant does, there would be a huge privacy uproar and I don’t think Congress would approve it,” Stanley says. “But because it’s a private contract, they can sidestep that process.”
Yes, I recall a long time ago, back in the 90’s, driving back from a trip to Missouri, and a week or two later receiving a ‘survey’ in the mail from Texas A&M wanting to ask me about my out of state trip. It may not be fully coordinated at the national level yet, but if it isn’t I’m quite surprised.
Last time I got a ticket, the cop’s radar gun had a picture of my plate with the recorded speed superimposed on it, and etc. etc. Big Brother has been here a while, and given how the government works, he’s probably a step or two ahead of where we think. Tinfoil and all.
I don’t really like it, but it is what it is.
Why am I not comforted by that last bit?
That’s why we need citizen review boards for EVERY police department and sheriff’s department in the country.
You shouldn't be, because as the number of license plate reading and recognizing devices increases, the location and travels of just about any vehicle will be easily determined - both by government employees and everyone else.
In a few years the ordinary citizen will a cell phone will be able to look up the location and travel history of just about everyone, and there will probably even be an app which lets you see where Officer Smith eats lunch, so you will know he's not out on Highway 20 with a radar gun.
Of course, as you noted, Bill the Burglar will know when you are over at Home Depot as well. Whether that state of affairs is comforting or not is hard to say, but it seems like it does make everyone behave better.
Where I live you go through a BP check on the freeway, the cameras go off as you approach.
Not every state requires an annual vehicle safety inspection, but mine does. Last year taking digital photos of the vehicle became standard, and it’s uploaded into the State database.
Does that include the plate & registration on my peddle bicycle?
Yeah, but they know all YOUR movements too.
I suppose you subscribe to the saying:
You have nothing to fear if you have done nothing wrong.
Milwaukee, Wisc. parking Nazis have l/p cameras and keep track of which plate was seen where and when. They highlight a vehicle in a 2 hr zone if YOUR TIME IS UP!
OR at a meter if your wheels haven’t turned if the meter is in a max time zone.
It’s pretty Orwellian.
Drivel......
You are free not to drive.
What are you bitchin about? Your tag is there for visibility, for the specific purpose of Identity.
1984 - it’s here
GHWB - “and we will be” (successful at achieving our NWO)
It has always been part of the government grand plan to Flood the country with Illegals and then use their crimes as an excuse to spy on and control Americans.
Why is it that all fixes to this situation involve doing things to citizens on a 10:1 basis they’re done to the illegal aliens?
Whose cars will be tracked?
LMAO, is there a collective of even 100 brain cells in Washington, D. C., outside of the White House, that is?
Wake up and pour some coffee. Vigilant Solutions has been building this data base for more than 5 years. The Feds can enter a license plate and a date and know every traffic inrpters3ction you passed. It is there. And there have been rare instances where they used it and referred to it in open court. Probably a great money maker for VS.
What’s going to stop them from going after the rest of us “law-abiding” citizens?
They’ve had this for years and it’s only an excuse to use it against illegals.
I do Not subscribe to that notion.
My post clearly indicates opposition to this initiative.
Amen
More people think similarly than we know.
Big brother, no thanks at all.
Agreed. Being the victim of a uninsured,
unlicensed illegal alien driver, I have
no problem with this. Your drivers license
is in state records, why not your license
plate. If it helps get illegals off the
road, I’m all for it. Driving not a right.
“If you think this hasn’t already been going on for more than a decade ... you’re mistaken.”
This has been done and is being done on many Californicator roads with very high traffic loads. They call it traffic studies.
The company/companies that have done these “studies” use the cell phones in every car to determine where the commute started and where it ended.
They also use your Fast Trac for these studies. When you are driving on a Cali Freeway, and you see how fast the traffic is moving ahead of you. That data is being determined by the the Fast Tracs in our car and our cell phone.
Every once in awhile, we see a car pulled over to the side of the road with several police cars and maybe a SWAT unit surrounding the vehicle.
The driver/passengers are on their knees with their hands behind their heads. The drugs/dope/whatever is being stacked outside and off the road by the stopped car and photographed.
It is amazing how the LEO’s knew to pull over that single car out of thousands on the same road.
Someone might get a similar idea: to track GPS enabled phones!
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