We had a local story where the gist was the police said they searched ALPR for the welfare of a young woman, but it was actually more focused on a possible abortion. [1] "Unrelated" this same Sheriff was later charged with sexual harassment, perjury, and retaliation against a witness [2]. These are the types that are able to easily track you if they wanted to.
"the only reason an officer is able to even search for a suspect at a protest is because ALPRs collected data on every single person who attended the protest."
No. This is simply not accurate. They collected data on every single car that attended, but there easily could be more people at the protest that rode in the same car, lyft/uber, took a bus, walked, or any other methods of getting there without a car.
In my neighborhood (a Criminal Justice Reform Zone), the catch and release of repeat criminals caused a surge in break ins. The citizens organized and funded the installation of Flock LPRs. Several criminals have been caught as a result, and crime is now down.
So the impetus is twofold:
- Funding provided by programs such as Operation Stonegarden and other grants
- Activists agitate for Criminal Justice Reform --> Surge in crime --> The People clamor for Enhanced Security Measures and DIY
>Everyone should have the right to speak up against injustice without ending up in a database.
If you speak in a public place you should expect to possibly be recorded. If you want to share a message with the public, you should cower when people receive it. If you want privacy, then protest somewhere private.
I have been using different anonimization tools to blur out my face and license plate at as many locations as possible to keep my data as private as possible. This recent tool does it in a single shot in a chat. I was able to blur out LPR data very easily with high accuracy https://chat.vlm.run/c/7ca96025-1d6c-4c33-ab82-97e6f017883b
12 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 28.6 ms ] threadWe had a local story where the gist was the police said they searched ALPR for the welfare of a young woman, but it was actually more focused on a possible abortion. [1] "Unrelated" this same Sheriff was later charged with sexual harassment, perjury, and retaliation against a witness [2]. These are the types that are able to easily track you if they wanted to.
[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/10/flock-safety-and-texas...
[2] https://www.fox4news.com/news/johnson-county-sheriff-arreste...
"Find Nearby Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR)" (70 comments), https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45487452
Adversarial computer vision and DIY OSS $250 RPi Hailo ALPR (2M views), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp9MwZkHiMQ
"Tire Pressure Sensor IDs: Why, Where and When (2015)" (30 comments), https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45490202
No. This is simply not accurate. They collected data on every single car that attended, but there easily could be more people at the protest that rode in the same car, lyft/uber, took a bus, walked, or any other methods of getting there without a car.
So the impetus is twofold:
- Funding provided by programs such as Operation Stonegarden and other grants
- Activists agitate for Criminal Justice Reform --> Surge in crime --> The People clamor for Enhanced Security Measures and DIY
If you speak in a public place you should expect to possibly be recorded. If you want to share a message with the public, you should cower when people receive it. If you want privacy, then protest somewhere private.
How do we come back from this?
It's time to go to your city council meeting and demand they do not use this technology. It was time yesterday.