Can I submit a FOIA request to get all the plate reads from Flock for my town's mayor or police chief (their private vehicles) so that I can create a map of where they go and share it online? I genuinely don't know the answer as I've not tried, but from things I've read I'm pretty sure they will not provide this. And that's the point - why can a police officer search the database for any plate they feel like but the public cannot?

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cmiles8 an hour ago | parent [-]

They will generally deny you access, but they will access it freely themselves despite this being data collected on public streets. That’s the disparity at issue. However there’s no law from you putting up your own camera, pointing it at a public street and publishing the details of every car that drives past and highlighting any interesting once’s, like the mayor, police chief, etc.

I suspect when there’s been a few cases of that sort of thing happening the attitude of local politicians towards these cameras will change quite quickly.

I generally thing this data is a good thing, provided it’s locked behind solid 4th amendment protections.

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dave78 an hour ago | parent [-]

> That’s the disparity at issue. However there’s no law from you putting up your own camera, pointing it at a public street and publishing the details of every car that drives past and highlighting any interesting once’s, like the mayor, police chief, etc.

Yes, and I keep thinking an organized, crowd-sourced effort like people do for capturing ADSB data or weather stations would be tempting. Setting up the hardware would be a little more involved though (mostly because of needing to locate it near the street). Cost is probably not even much worse than an ADSB monitor now.

Something like this is probably inevitable, either as a grassroots effort or via something like Amazon's Ring network. Short term it could prompt officials into action, but I fear long term it would be bad for society - laws might be written to prohibit it, but those would have side effects of limiting other things (like the aforementioned ADSB monitoring network).

	▲	Scion9066 24 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		A number of states already have laws preventing individuals from setting up ALPR. I can't image state or government officials that don't lready have those restrictions in place would allow the public to set up tracking of their movements for very long if someone did try to set up something crowd-sourced or easily searchable. e.g.: Arkansas: https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/title-12/subtitle-2/ch... > Except as provided in subsection (b) of this section, it is unlawful for an individual, partnership, corporation, association, or the State of Arkansas, its agencies, and political subdivisions to use an automatic license plate reader system. Maine: https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/29-A/title29-Asec2117... > Except as otherwise provided in subsection 3, a person may not use an automated license plate recognition system.
	▲	cmiles8 33 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		ADSB stuff falls into the much broader legal concept in the US that airwaves are public and if you can receive it and aren’t cracking encryption then it’s fair game to listen to. Many countries have a far more restrictive view of radio traffic, and encryption in ADSB isn’t likely to happen anytime soon if ever.