This free tool is helping drivers avoid automatic license plate readers — as fears grow around 'intrusive' new devices that could track your phone, Air Pod and smartwatch data | Tech Radar
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This free tool is helping drivers avoid automatic license plate readers — as fears grow around 'intrusive' new devices that could track your phone, Air Pod and smartwatch data
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A Flock camera (left) next to the new Signal Trace devices (right), which can identify the movements of electronic devices, individuals, and vehicles. (Image credit: Getty Images / Leonardo)
ALPR (Automated License Plate Recognition) camera tech is getting smarter
A new company is bridging the gap between cameras and connected tech
Tools to avoid ALPR cameras are rapidly gaining popularity
More than 5,000 law enforcement departments across the US use Flock Safety cameras to track billions of license plates every month, according to a report from NBC news, helping them build an enormous database of the movements of everyday people.
But Flock is just one company working on such tech, with hundreds of new automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras and devices springing up daily.
More recently, 404 Media has highlighted a new tech firm that aims to add phone, Air Pod and Smartwatch location data to license plate readers in order to build a clearer picture about who was driving what… and when. Understandably, rebellious drivers are now fighting back thanks to a new website called De Flock.
Leonardo's Signal Trace system is designed to scan the airwaves for signals left by myriad Bluetooth and wireless connected devices in order to link these to a license plate as it passes, potentially placing an individual in a vehicle at a specific time and place.
Leonardo says its technology uses "non-intrusive intelligence gathering" to detect publicly broadcasted device identifiers, feeding this data into an advanced algorithm so that multiple devices traveling together could link an individual to a vehicle and vice versa.
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The police and other law enforcement agencies are then able to access this data, but concerns have been raised about the potential for hacking or misuse by the authorities to track personal relations.
In a move that aims to hand back some control to the individual, a website called De Flock has surfaced that allows anyone to plan routes that actively avoid Flock’s ALPR cameras altogether and generally provide a more privacy-focussed alternative.
Just like most digital route-planners, users plug in a start and end point for their journey, changing how aggressively they want the software to avoid cameras, according to Carscoops.
The site will then compare a normal route to the more private alternative, suggesting how many miles and minutes a detour would take.
Website user numbers are on the increase, as organizations, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, have warned that Flock’s surveillance camera systems are designed to enable “mass surveillance” and are susceptible to “grave abuses”, according to its own investigations.
Last year, the EFF reported on how more than 50 federal, state, and local agencies ran hundreds of searches through Flock's national network of surveillance data in connection with protest activity over a ten-month period, for example.
With news that ALPR cameras could soon be linked to connected devices, some sectors of the general public are understandably concerned, with one Reddit user commenting: “the only hope for anything is a Digital Civil Rights movement”.
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Leon has been navigating a world where automotive and tech collide for almost 20 years, reporting on everything from in-car entertainment to robotised manufacturing plants. Currently, EVs are the focus of his attentions, but give it a few years and it will be electric vertical take-off and landing craft. Outside of work hours, he can be found tinkering with distinctly analogue motorcycles, because electric motors are no replacement for an old Honda inline four.
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