Deflock the Surveillance State

November 11, 2024 12:09 PM

DeFlock is a crowd-sourced map of Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) around the world. Want to post an ALPR in your town? Logon to Open Street Map and follow these handy instructions! (via 404 Media)
posted by slogger (28 comments total)

Viral anarchy. I like it.
posted by y2karl at 12:46 PM on November 11 [6 favorites]

On the one hand, surveillance, yuck. On the other hand, license plate readers are used to do things like automatically ticket people running red lights and speeding, automatically collect tolls, etc. We have a rash of people obscuring their license plates here in NYC, and these people regularly also have long lists of unpaid traffic tickets.
Further, there is new research that shows that these cameras are much less biased than police officers enforcing the same laws.
At this point, I think we are all suffering a scourge of aggressively unsafe drivers, and I think automated enforcement is probably better than putting a bunch more cops out there to pull people over. I’d rather focus on the usage of the data.
posted by ch1x0r at 1:01 PM on November 11 [28 favorites]

On the other hand, license plate readers are used to do things like automatically ticket people running red lights and speeding, automatically collect tolls, etc.

Those are different kinds of cameras. They're only triggered when someone speeds, runs a light or enters a toll road. ALPRs just surveil and record everyone, all the time.
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:11 PM on November 11 [33 favorites]

Darn. Not a single ALPR in my state or seven adjoining or nearby states.
posted by davidmsc at 1:13 PM on November 11

There's probably $30-$50 worth of copper and other materials in those things. Just saying.
posted by goatdog at 1:40 PM on November 11 [14 favorites]

Oh, I wondered what that thing was.

I'm going to break it.
posted by pattern juggler at 1:50 PM on November 11 [11 favorites]

The nearest marker to me is just somebody's house on a side street in a small town, so I don't know how much is truthful here, yay crowdsourcing!
posted by AzraelBrown at 2:16 PM on November 11

Whoa, Kansas City KS has a *lot* of these things!

(To find out, go to overpass turbo, scroll the map to where you want to search [big areas get slow and may fail, be warned], then enter the Wizard tab and paste in surveillance:type=ALPR and select "Build and Run Query")
posted by scruss at 2:19 PM on November 11 [3 favorites]

The nearest one to me one the map is on a very unlikely backroad in just about as middle of nowhere you as can get in Central New Jersey. It's really there, though, you can see it on Google street view.
posted by mollweide at 2:26 PM on November 11 [1 favorite]

A lot more in my IL town than I expected. I think they were installed recently as part of an anti-gun violence campaign, because of course constantly surveilling the entire populace is the right way to deal with that, of course it is.
posted by SaltySalticid at 2:30 PM on November 11 [3 favorites]

Such a shame that micromobility options like bikes, ebikes, and scooters have no plates and typically have no licensing/registration requirements. So much data that these poor police departments are missing out on.
posted by robot_jesus at 2:47 PM on November 11 [5 favorites]

We have a serious choke point in our tiny town thanks to a single bridge and a major tourist attraction on the other side. I’m pretty sure we have FLOCk to measure shifts in traffic patterns, to distinguish locals (who don’t have a choice but to cross the river) and tourists who we wish to intercept. All this to say that the success of our public transit is somewhat measured by what comes out of those FLOCk cameras, so they aren’t necessarily pure evil.
posted by furtive at 3:05 PM on November 11 [2 favorites]

And what, pray tell, is the value of a map like this when any street-facing camera recording more or less continuously and loading its data up to some server 'in the cloud' can be mined (legally or not) for images of sufficient resolution to provide license plate numbers, along with time and date?

How far are we from that?
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 3:33 PM on November 11 [1 favorite]

Is the website data only crowd-sourced? Cameras in Marin County have been cited in news articles, but hte map shows virtually nothing. I know that the Tiburon/Belvedere peninsula has all entry roads covered with cameras. If I know the locations I'd post, but.....
posted by TDIpod at 3:56 PM on November 11

Wild... there's none reported in my town, but there's a circle of five(!) of them in Centennial, Colorado, and they're all in a ring around the swanky Park Meadows Mall.

You can't enter or exit the mall parking lot without passing one. For theft, I guess?
posted by mochapickle at 4:26 PM on November 11 [1 favorite]

Every Home Depot or other big box store has these stations in their parking lot, and they are reading your plate. They even have it in their privacy policy.

Every buy something their with the same card twice? Home Depot (or whatever third party security contractor) can now have your license plate number. And sell it to whomever.
posted by AlSweigart at 4:51 PM on November 11 [9 favorites]

Ever buy something their with the same card twice?

This is probably (at least in part) why they don't take Apple Pay. And why I use AP whenever I can.
posted by neuron at 5:17 PM on November 11 [1 favorite]

None near me; but that is probably because all the police cars have them
posted by TedW at 6:19 PM on November 11 [1 favorite]

> This is probably (at least in part) why they don't take Apple Pay

How does Google Pay compare with Apple Pay in terms of privacy? I'm embedded in the Google datasphere, so wonder if I should start using Google Pay

(Fwiw I Googlified myself because at one time I had my address book and other important data in a Palm Pilot, which I lost at a critical time in my life. Incredibly, the Pilot turned up again juuust before its battery ran out, at which point I exported everything into Google.)
posted by anadem at 7:26 PM on November 11

Pasadena has a few, right where I'd expect them to be, but I bet you Colorado Blvd lights up in about 6 weeks with additional security on board for the parade.
posted by drewbage1847 at 7:27 PM on November 11 [1 favorite]

None near me; but that is probably because all the police cars have them
One is listed near me, although I know there are more. But, yeah, most police cars here have them, so anyone having the idea of avoiding them with a map like this is shit out of luck.

But also, anything to shine even a weak light on universal surveillance is good by me.
posted by dg at 9:19 PM on November 11 [2 favorites]

It's not universal surveillance if you have to choose to do a particular activity (driving) to be surveilled. Wide spread surveillance, sure, but it's not universal if it's ANPR. I can dodge it just by riding a bike or walking.
posted by Dysk at 10:18 PM on November 11

I know there is one in our neighborhood park because it's right next to the outdoor gym I use. It's not on their map. I'll look at it on my walk today to figure out what brand it is. Glad to report it, because maybe that will cut down on the vroom vroom drag racing through our neighborhood all night (yes, they will just go to other neighborhoods. sorry).
posted by hydropsyche at 3:10 AM on November 12 [1 favorite]

One each way on the Bourne Bridge but nothing on the Sagamore? Time to go Flockspotting!
posted by whuppy at 5:07 AM on November 12 [1 favorite]

Not a single one listed in the DC metro area. This seems oddly unlikely.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 5:25 AM on November 12 [1 favorite]

Wow. Our city, Rockford IL, has bought a bunch of these. I knew they had car-mounted readers, but news stories report that they purchased some for fixed locations, tied in with gunshot detectors. I’ll have to search for good images so I can find them and update the map.
posted by coldhotel at 7:00 AM on November 12

The map is hardly comprehensive or exhaustive. It shows a handful of Flock cameras in my hometown, but I'm aware of quite a few more. Time to make some contributions!
posted by slogger at 8:54 AM on November 12

→ Not a single one listed in the DC metro area. This seems oddly unlikely.

This all depends on the number and activity level of OSM mappers in the area. I knew a few mappers around DC years ago, but (like most of us) they've likely burned out
posted by scruss at 9:44 AM on November 12