9 ms·

Traffic cameras expose your location through parking apps

360 points by flux_w42 4y ago

vishnugupta 4y ago
At this point I’m carrying so many electronic devices with me or at home that I’ve give up on going out of my way to prevent getting tracked. My best effort is to trust Apple doesn’t sell me out.
- izacus 4y ago
  What does Apple have to do with it here? The apps on your Apple device are exfiltrating data left and right every day - including parking apps which are the topic of this post. Megacorporations aren't going to save you from this one. Actually creating regulation that will define where you're data is allowed to go (and stay) might.
  - dereg 4y ago
    I don’t think you (nor parent) read the actual post. 1. The problem presented is not that parking apps exfiltrate data from your phone, it’s that anyone can throw your plate number into it and get notified of when you pass through specific areas. 2. Your solution would not address the problem. Problem is not one of data portability, but the fact that your license plate may be registered in a system without your consent or awareness. The convenience of the service is directly at odds with privacy/security, and the post is asserting that the gain in convenience achieved through the current implementation is not worth the perils of the unfettered tracking possible through it. It provides non-governmental solutions to ameliorate the issue.
  - ezfe 4y ago
    Apple has all the data at full precision. The few apps that are selling my data get the scraps of a Wi-Fi SSID here or there, and an IP address every once in a while. This is how Apple comes into it.
- raspyberr 4y ago
  Inspiring
- DoingIsLearning 4y ago
  > At this point I’m carrying so many electronic devices with me or at home that I’ve give up on going out of my way to prevent getting tracked As much as I hate the guy, Kissinger made a great point in an interview with Eric Schmidt paraphrased: 'We have lived a fairly peaceful period in the last century with a stable world order, we should not assume that this is guaranteed to continue forever.' We usually don't like to think in centuries or decades. But a democratic state today can become autocratic 50 years from now. Equally, today caring about my privacy is just adding a lot of friction to me daily live. 50 years from now, I have no guarantee that myself or someone in my family becomes 'a person of interest' for my government.
  - mongol 4y ago
    I start to think that in an ordinary human lifetime it is more likely than not to experience disaster. If you were born in 1945 and are still alive today, you may have picked the most lucky period to have lived through of all possible. I am not concvinced the next 75 years will be as peaceful as the past 75.
    - giantg2 4y ago
      I'm not sure how true that is. I think it's dependent on location really or country for conflicts. Some places have seen a lot of violence. Violent crime rates were pretty high in some areas too.
      - mongol 4y ago
        Yes I realize it is not a very general statement. Many places have experienced conflicts also during this period. But in average, I think it may still be true.
    - Consultant32452 4y ago
      - mijamo 4y ago
- yosito 4y ago
  I was a bit bored in 2021 and going out a lot less than normal, so I had time to experiment with an Android phone using all open source privacy respecting apps. I managed to make it work, but it took quite a lot of my time and resources and definitely meant sacrificing some conveniences. Eventually, when I started going out and being more socially active again, it got to be too inconvenient for me, and I decided to switch to Apple and be less strict about it. While I did pick up some more careful privacy practices, I have no doubt that my location could easily be tracked by multiple parties. To be honest, it could probably have been tracked much of the time when I was going all out to avoid it too. If nothing else, cellular network operators can determine my position by which towers my SIM card is connecting to, and I have no illusions about that data being private. I'm sure that being tracked by Wifi networks, bluetooth and payment terminals is also happening all the time. I don't like that everyone is so trackable in the modern world. But avoiding it basically means opting out of all of these trackable technologies and living like a monk: no cell phones, no cars, no cashless payments, etc. How many people really want to make those sacrifices?
  - vishnugupta 4y ago
    Thank you for elucidating my two liner. I was writing from a similar experience as yours. Now I believe I've reached a reasonable compromise between inconvenience and privacy. Minimise my data footprint in the private corporation space which means no Google (almost, YouTube and Maps are still hard to replace), Apple ecosystem with all sorts of anti-tracking setting turned on (Privacy relay, hide-my-email, and what not), nextdns, own my email domain + Fastmail. Which means Apple has just about all the data about me over last ~3 years and so far they seem to be doing a good job of holding fort. Obviously if a state actor wants to screw me then well, all bets are off so I'm not going to guard myself against that as it's way too more inconvenient as you stated.
    - sneak 4y ago
      > Apple ecosystem with all sorts of anti-tracking setting turned on (Privacy relay, hide-my-email, and what not), nextdns, own my email domain + Fastmail. The best way to increase privacy in the Apple ecosystem is to not use iCloud at all. Most of it (including your photos and backups, which contain endpoint keys and chat history) is effectively unencrypted and Apple can read all of it at any time without your device. Apple intentionally preserves this encryption backdoor in iMessage/Photos/iCloud for the US federal government, who can then access this information without a search warrant or probable cause. This means creating a burner phone number, using that to create a burner Apple ID that is used only for installing apps, using only free apps (because the moment you put your payment card information in, you're deanonymized) and only using devices bought for cash. Then Apple has a fair amount of information about you, but it's not linked to your identity. Apple turns over customer data to the US federal authorities without a warrant over 30,000 times per year per their own transparency report. This is in addition to the normal legal process stuff that involves subpoenas or probable cause-based search warrants.
julienreszka 4y ago
Don't be fooled. The purpose of mass surveillance has always been coercion. If you can't see how this is going to be abused just give it a bit more thought.
Rygian 4y ago
The gist of it: I can subscribe to location updates for any license plate that I want, without knowledge or consent from the owner of that car.
- londons_explore 4y ago
  Something you could do anyway with a network of $50 android phones mounted on bridges over freeways. But this way you don't have to pay for the cameras - someone else has done it for you.
  - Sebb767 4y ago
    You'd need to place those, maintain them, prevent vandalism, route power to them, pay for network connectivity and weather-proof them. The price of the cameras is not the problem.
    - londons_explore 4y ago
      I will place and maintain road cameras for $50/yr, including data connectivity for plates. Minimum 1,000 cameras. 75% uptime/scan rate guarantee.
      - arethuza 4y ago
        "I will place and maintain" I suspect a lot of that $50,000 a year would get burned getting a single camera installed.
        nisegami 4y ago
        Only if you do it legally
      - InCityDreams 4y ago
        >for $50/yr..... Minimum how many years? I see software doesn't seem to be incuded. Also, your numbers sound like you like to bid for government contracts.
mdrzn 4y ago
It could be easily fixed by having to get a physical OTP from an automated kiosk in the car park to add the license plate to the app.
- pelasaco 4y ago
  super easy and user friendly. Easy to rollout, to keep a working supply-chain for the physical OTP...
  - Rygian 4y ago
    Also known as the ever-lasting tension between security and usability. To protect privacy, I would support an understandable degradation of usability.
kleiba 4y ago
As long as privacy is not a granted right that enables you to sue offenders, there's not much you can do. The EU has at least started to realize the issue but giving the speed of technology vs. the pace of administration, it might be a losing battle.
- arbitrage 4y ago
  Rights grant you the ability to sue others? Interesting take.
  - matthewmcg 4y ago
    Sue others or the government. A right without a remedy isn't really a useful right.
  - pc86 4y ago
    I mean, it makes sense. If you have the "right" to $THING, but you have no redress if someone denies you $THING, you don't really have a right to it.
  - aqfamnzc 4y ago
    For violating those rights? Yeah, I would think so...
- kwhitefoot 4y ago
  The use of dash cams is effectively illegal in Austria on privacy grounds: https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/152064/are-dash-cams-illegal-in-austria https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/152064/are-dash-c...
  - genewitch 4y ago
    hilariously, most dashcams don't have the optical fidelity to read plates consistently anyhow.
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
Gigachad 4y ago
Just another reason to preference walking and cycling.
- hunterb123 4y ago
  A bike is a great mode of transportation when you don't need to carry anything heavy, bulky, passengers etc. and when weather permits. It's not a replacement for a vehicle, nor will it ever be.
  - closeparen 4y ago
    The Netherlands would like a word.
    - 988747 4y ago
      It only works for short trips. No one rides a bicycle if they have to go to another town, 50 miles away. Also, do not mention: "you can take your bicycle on a train" - if you need to use the train then again you are dependent on public service and traceable.
      - makeitdouble 4y ago
        Passenger cars also don’t work for containers or industrial timber transport. No specific vehicle needs to fit every single use case, if your day to day life involves commuting from a town 50 miles away in the middle of nowhere, so be it. More people live in cities than rural areas, but it doesn’t mean they’ll come to take away your car.
      - andrepd 4y ago
        > It only works for short trips. No one rides a bicycle if they have to go to another town, 50 miles away. 1. Ride your bike into a train 2. Wait 20 minutes 3. Roll out of the train and ride into your destination See, it isn't that hard. What part of this process requires you to be tracked? You don't need any ID to purchase train tickets.
TacticalCoder 4y ago
> Certain tollroad systems, such as France's Bip & Go télépéage, require a physical Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag to be present in the car for authentication purposes. Only if you want to pass the toll / "télépéage" without having to stop for paying "manually" (using a credit card of whatever). I've got one and now you can pass most tolls without stopping (but you need to slow down to about 30 km/h // 20 mph).
- skywhopper 4y ago
  Transponders (not sure if it’s RFID per se) are common on toll highways in the US and can operate at full highway speeds. But at least with the system I’m familiar with (I-Pass in the Chicago area), if your transponder is broken or missing, they will correlate your license plate to your account via photo.
- mig39 4y ago
  I recently took a Spanish rental car to Portugal for more than a month. I registered the license plate number and a credit card on the Portuguese tolls website. I then used a bunch of toll highways that were "electronic only" and received the appropriate charges on my credit card a few days later. I think if you're going to set up a toll system in the future, then this is the tech you're going to use. Not RFID or transponders. Just read the license plate and charge the user. There were options, BTW, to pay in cash, with pre-paid cards, etc, that didn't directly tie your identity to the plate. But I assume the rental agency will tie me to the plate, so used my credit card anyway.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    > I think if you're going to set up a toll system in the future, then this is the tech you're going to use. Not RFID or transponders. Just read the license plate and charge the user. In my experience any tolling system set up in the past decade is this way. No worries about transponders, they just have a bunch of cameras over the lanes and then send you a bill. Works even for out-of-state plates.
tluyben2 4y ago
I remember the police claiming they had this tech (license plate recognition) for average speed tracking while it did not work. It also didn’t work but was claimed to work for some toll roads. It helped as people slowed down and paid toll but it didn’t work; it started working years after installing it.
- tluyben2 4y ago
  I am not supposed to ask on HN but why the downvotes? It’s just an observation from the past (Over 20 years ago)?
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    It's self-contradictory and hard to understand.
    - tluyben2 4y ago
      How self contradictory? Most people believed it worked and slowed down, but driving too fast never got you fined because it didn’t actually recognise your number plate. Unlike normal speed cams which were manual at the time.
      - anigbrowl 4y ago
        > it didn’t work; it started working years after installing it. Nothing personal, it is just not very well phrased and I think you confused a lot of people with the first version.
        tluyben2 4y ago
        Fair enough!
aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
As soon as you put a huge identification plate on your vehicle there’s no expectation of privacy.
- tremon 4y ago
  That's the reason you only ever leave your house in a niqaab, I gather?
- giantg2 4y ago
  That depends. We could set standards for what information is linked to that plate and to whom it is accessible. (My state actually has a standard for some info which should not be tied to a plate, but they do it anyways. But nobody is going to stop them. I brought it up to the AG's office, but they were complete idiots about it) One could also set up an anonymous LLC and register the vehicle that way if they really cared.
- notmyplateslol 4y ago
  I didn't put them on there, they already were there when I picked the car up. And every time I try taking them off people get angry at me.
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  There’s always a point where the amount of data makes it a different thing altogether. Like the difference between hearing random strangers talking on the street, and have a full record of everything that person said outside their home for the past 5 years.
- daoist_shaman 4y ago
  As soon as you’re birthed in a hospital and issued a birth certificate there’s no expectation of privacy. Unless you’re an off-the-grid baby [0]. [0] https://www.quora.com/Is-it-legal-to-have-an-unregistered-off-the-grid-no-birth-certificate-baby-in-the-USA https://www.quora.com/Is-it-legal-to-have-an-unregistered-of...
avian 4y ago
In my country, the EasyPark app seems to have taken a lot of the market. Almost every parking space I see now has it as an option, including spaces owned by the city. Thankfully, they currently still support paying with cash, but machines often don't return change and only accept coins, so they can be inconvenient. It's shocking to compare the privacy aspect of the app: instead of anonymously throwing some coins into a machine and putting a slip on your dashboard, the app needs: your phone number, your plate number, your credit card details and full GPS access. They're not hiding this: It's explained in their GDPR privacy notice that they track and store your phone location and travel routes even when you're not using a parking space. On top of that, you also pay more for parking when using the app, since they take some percentage commission of the parking cost (apparently depending on your account options, but I never got far enough with the app to find this out)
- fubbyy 4y ago
  Same in the UK with RingGo.
  - InCityDreams 4y ago
    Uk has gdpr?
    - goodcanadian 4y ago
      Yes. All EU law at the time of Brexit remains UK law unless and until it is explicitly revoked/superseded.
- rlpb 4y ago
  > They're not hiding this: It's explained in their GDPR privacy notice that they track and store your phone location and travel routes even when you're not using a parking space. What you're describing sounds illegal. Under the GDPR they cannot collect personal information that's not strictly required for the service the customer is requesting. Unless they have express permission and the customer isn't denied service for refusing.
someweirdperson 4y ago
Finally. Publish it all. Tracking of every vehicle, visible for everyone. It has been that way with aircraft for a long time. Pilots, however, are such a minority that noone really cares. Now that everyone is impacted, regulation might get updated (or someone might spend the time to identify existing regulation that prohibits this), and that would extend to other vehicles than those with wheels.
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  yep! There are so many people thinking "I did nothing wrong, who cares if I get tracked".... publish it all, and then have all the neighbours have access to that, the wife can see when you left the bar, your boss can see when you left, etc... only then will people be aware that it's not ok to do that. There are also laws (not sure if accepted yet) that all cars should have remote shutdowns/blocks.. for "security reasons" (basically police can shut down your car if they want to)... and I'm just waiting for someone to hack the whole system and shut down all the cars around the world just for fun
  - is_true 4y ago
    Ideally other people shouldn't care what you do. But reality is sad
    - makeitdouble 4y ago
      Even beyond nosyness, you might want your elderly parents to stay unaware that you’re checking retirement homes in their area. Or not let your son know you’re working a second job while he’s in college. Privacy is just so important from any angle we put it.
      - is_true 4y ago
        I don't particularly agree with both of your examples, but I share your opinion on the importance of privacy. Citizen surveillance and corruption was the reason I started disliking cameras on public places.
franga2000 4y ago
Would the solution no be to simply allow people to pay for parking twice? There's already nothing stopping you from getting two parking slips at a machine. Just start another parking session for each user and track them independently.
bambax 4y ago
The DB5 in Goldfinger (1964) had revolving licence plates. A cursory Google search comes up with some shady websites that sell similar tech, but it would be a nice DIY project to make a licence plate screen that can be changed on the fly (e-ink based maybe). Has anyone tried it?
- nopcode 4y ago
  SWIM has a leaf-shaped magnet that can be demagnetised via remote. You put it on the plate so that it cannot be scanned but if police pulls you over it falls off.
- bjacobt 4y ago
  What about https://reviver.com https://reviver.com ?
- rozab 4y ago
  This would be flagged immediately. Law enforcement cameras check the plate against the registered make, model, and colour (which are public record in the UK)
  - dylan604 4y ago
    What happens if you paint your car? Are you supposed to inform your gov't?
    - tristor 4y ago
      Yes, actually, although generally speaking it's not widely enforced. Generally you won't get caught as long as the color on the registration matches the factory color in the VIN database, but you are supposed to ensure the vehicle description is accurate when you renew your registration and providing false information is a criminal offense, so if the color changes, you should update your vehicle registration.
    - scrumbledober 4y ago
      yes
daoist_shaman 4y ago
Theoretically, could this same principle be borrowed by the open source community… to create a database that tracks and updates the location of police, government, military, and high status individual vehicles? I’m thinking of a decentralized, Web3, IPFS-like distributed database, but instead of file storage, it’s real-time geolocation with OSM on the backend.
- Olphs 4y ago
  Yes technically, as long as you know the license plates, but how often do those vehicles park in a commercial places like that? I don't think they do often enough for this kind of tracking to be useful
  - daoist_shaman 4y ago
    Good point. It would become dramatically more useful if netizens just ran license plate scanners on their dashboards that regular report the timestamped geodata of marked/government vehicles.
pstuart 4y ago
This came up in a thread elsewhere about the severe increase in vehicle thefts in the Portland area. These thefts are not actively investigated by the police, so it would be nice if the owner of a vehicle could get relevant data for the movement/location of the stolen vehicle. Anybody here ever worked with their local PD to get access to the ALPR data? Seems like the work to do it would be more political/bureaucratic than technical.
- hedora 4y ago
  We tried and failed, but it was not ALPR data. I came to the conclusion that the data is only available to defend the well connected, or to persecute their enemies (at least in the US). I think the creation of mass tracking databases should be illegal. Barring that, every single person should have equal access to it. (Perhaps gated behind filing a police report and swearing it is correct under penalty of perjury.)
  - pstuart 4y ago
    Yeah, the thought was that after filing a police report one could track just the related vehicle. Agreed on the dismal assessments, but those DBs are going to be created and we might as well extract some value as citizens. Would you mind summarizing your attempt and any lessons learned (other than the disappointment mentioned)?
    - hedora 4y ago
      The details are kind of boring and out of date. We were repeated victims of minor property crimes. The police spent maybe 5-10 officer hours investigating, which is more than I expected. However, they failed to run a (unusual for them, but legal) database search that would have almost certainly identified the culprits. I think they would have done it if the crime was higher priority for them, but ultimately, they need to prioritize their resources on serious crimes and things that make for good public relations / internal politics (like if we were friends with the mayor or something). As the victims, we had every incentive to pursue the investigation, but no legal ability to do so. I'm well aware that our experience was far, far better than is typical in, say SF or Oakland. In our case, they probably would have made an arrest if we had a positive identification of the criminal. That's not really the case everywhere, which is a separate issue.
slowhand09 4y ago
I'm surprised my idea from 10 yrs ago hasn't been monetized. It was an lcd cover that could be made in license plate size, with a remote controller which could dim/darken/blackout the cover. Or in Deluxe mode, activate lines randomly which would result in a different number. Then again... somebody is out front in this technology space. https://www.newsweek.com/what-are-digital-license-plates-how-do-they-work-1717039 https://www.newsweek.com/what-are-digital-license-plates-how...
- green-salt 4y ago
  I have seen a video of someone doing just this on a car. I'm not sure if it was a commercial product or if it was something they hacked together.
- pol63 4y ago
  I’m not. You’re describing a spectrum from a traffic ticket in some states (CA will cite you for darkening) to a misdemeanor or even a felony for falsifying or obscuring your license plate. Yes, you can still buy darkeners in the areas they’re illegal, but nobody is going to invest in developing a misdemeanor machine for sale. There’s a difference between a sheet of dark plastic and an engineered device. The digital plates thought of this in their design. You can think of them as frontend UIs for your jurisdiction’s motor vehicle authority, even though a private company is working on them. They will snitch when your tags lapse, both visually and electronically (that’s their purpose), and won’t let you do what you’re proposing if they’re designed correctly.
- mellavora 4y ago
  maybe because the device could subject both the buyer and the seller to criminal prosecution?
- tmh88j 4y ago
  I'm not surprised, it sounds illegal for the purpose you described. It's illegal just to own plate flipping devices without even using them in some states. Surely that would be too. > A person commits an offense if the person with criminal negligence uses, purchases, possesses, manufactures, sells, offers to sell, or otherwise distributes a license plate flipper. An offense under this subsection is a Class C misdemeanor, except that the offense is a Class B misdemeanor if the person has previously been convicted of an offense under this subsection. https://law.onecle.com/texas/transportation/504.947.html https://law.onecle.com/texas/transportation/504.947.html
dublin 4y ago
With the rise of automated license plate readers and tracking databases, we MUST recognize this truth: License Plates Considered Harmful (to privacy and 4th Amendment rights). No, I'm not joking. If we're not going to put serious legal restrictions and penalties on this kind of tracking, the only other viable option is to eliminate license plates entirely. Here in Austin, there is at least one sane City Councilman who is pushing for a maximum 3 minute retention time for license plate scan event data. I expect that would get pushed to 30-180 minutes in reality, but there is no justification for any longer than that...
illiac786 4y ago
What happens if I fill out the form BUT I am an easypark user? Does it delete my account?

360 points by flux_w42 4y ago

At this point I’m carrying so many electronic devices with me or at home that I’ve give up on going out of my way to prevent getting tracked. My best effort is to trust Apple doesn’t sell me out.

izacus 4y ago
What does Apple have to do with it here? The apps on your Apple device are exfiltrating data left and right every day - including parking apps which are the topic of this post. Megacorporations aren't going to save you from this one. Actually creating regulation that will define where you're data is allowed to go (and stay) might.
- dereg 4y ago
  I don’t think you (nor parent) read the actual post. 1. The problem presented is not that parking apps exfiltrate data from your phone, it’s that anyone can throw your plate number into it and get notified of when you pass through specific areas. 2. Your solution would not address the problem. Problem is not one of data portability, but the fact that your license plate may be registered in a system without your consent or awareness. The convenience of the service is directly at odds with privacy/security, and the post is asserting that the gain in convenience achieved through the current implementation is not worth the perils of the unfettered tracking possible through it. It provides non-governmental solutions to ameliorate the issue.
- ezfe 4y ago
  Apple has all the data at full precision. The few apps that are selling my data get the scraps of a Wi-Fi SSID here or there, and an IP address every once in a while. This is how Apple comes into it.
raspyberr 4y ago
Inspiring
DoingIsLearning 4y ago
> At this point I’m carrying so many electronic devices with me or at home that I’ve give up on going out of my way to prevent getting tracked As much as I hate the guy, Kissinger made a great point in an interview with Eric Schmidt paraphrased: 'We have lived a fairly peaceful period in the last century with a stable world order, we should not assume that this is guaranteed to continue forever.' We usually don't like to think in centuries or decades. But a democratic state today can become autocratic 50 years from now. Equally, today caring about my privacy is just adding a lot of friction to me daily live. 50 years from now, I have no guarantee that myself or someone in my family becomes 'a person of interest' for my government.
- mongol 4y ago
  I start to think that in an ordinary human lifetime it is more likely than not to experience disaster. If you were born in 1945 and are still alive today, you may have picked the most lucky period to have lived through of all possible. I am not concvinced the next 75 years will be as peaceful as the past 75.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    I'm not sure how true that is. I think it's dependent on location really or country for conflicts. Some places have seen a lot of violence. Violent crime rates were pretty high in some areas too.
    - mongol 4y ago
      Yes I realize it is not a very general statement. Many places have experienced conflicts also during this period. But in average, I think it may still be true.
  - Consultant32452 4y ago
    - mijamo 4y ago
yosito 4y ago
I was a bit bored in 2021 and going out a lot less than normal, so I had time to experiment with an Android phone using all open source privacy respecting apps. I managed to make it work, but it took quite a lot of my time and resources and definitely meant sacrificing some conveniences. Eventually, when I started going out and being more socially active again, it got to be too inconvenient for me, and I decided to switch to Apple and be less strict about it. While I did pick up some more careful privacy practices, I have no doubt that my location could easily be tracked by multiple parties. To be honest, it could probably have been tracked much of the time when I was going all out to avoid it too. If nothing else, cellular network operators can determine my position by which towers my SIM card is connecting to, and I have no illusions about that data being private. I'm sure that being tracked by Wifi networks, bluetooth and payment terminals is also happening all the time. I don't like that everyone is so trackable in the modern world. But avoiding it basically means opting out of all of these trackable technologies and living like a monk: no cell phones, no cars, no cashless payments, etc. How many people really want to make those sacrifices?
- vishnugupta 4y ago
  Thank you for elucidating my two liner. I was writing from a similar experience as yours. Now I believe I've reached a reasonable compromise between inconvenience and privacy. Minimise my data footprint in the private corporation space which means no Google (almost, YouTube and Maps are still hard to replace), Apple ecosystem with all sorts of anti-tracking setting turned on (Privacy relay, hide-my-email, and what not), nextdns, own my email domain + Fastmail. Which means Apple has just about all the data about me over last ~3 years and so far they seem to be doing a good job of holding fort. Obviously if a state actor wants to screw me then well, all bets are off so I'm not going to guard myself against that as it's way too more inconvenient as you stated.
  - sneak 4y ago
    > Apple ecosystem with all sorts of anti-tracking setting turned on (Privacy relay, hide-my-email, and what not), nextdns, own my email domain + Fastmail. The best way to increase privacy in the Apple ecosystem is to not use iCloud at all. Most of it (including your photos and backups, which contain endpoint keys and chat history) is effectively unencrypted and Apple can read all of it at any time without your device. Apple intentionally preserves this encryption backdoor in iMessage/Photos/iCloud for the US federal government, who can then access this information without a search warrant or probable cause. This means creating a burner phone number, using that to create a burner Apple ID that is used only for installing apps, using only free apps (because the moment you put your payment card information in, you're deanonymized) and only using devices bought for cash. Then Apple has a fair amount of information about you, but it's not linked to your identity. Apple turns over customer data to the US federal authorities without a warrant over 30,000 times per year per their own transparency report. This is in addition to the normal legal process stuff that involves subpoenas or probable cause-based search warrants.

julienreszka 4y ago

Don't be fooled. The purpose of mass surveillance has always been coercion. If you can't see how this is going to be abused just give it a bit more thought.

Rygian 4y ago

The gist of it: I can subscribe to location updates for any license plate that I want, without knowledge or consent from the owner of that car.

londons_explore 4y ago
Something you could do anyway with a network of $50 android phones mounted on bridges over freeways. But this way you don't have to pay for the cameras - someone else has done it for you.
- Sebb767 4y ago
  You'd need to place those, maintain them, prevent vandalism, route power to them, pay for network connectivity and weather-proof them. The price of the cameras is not the problem.
  - londons_explore 4y ago
    I will place and maintain road cameras for $50/yr, including data connectivity for plates. Minimum 1,000 cameras. 75% uptime/scan rate guarantee.
    - arethuza 4y ago
      "I will place and maintain" I suspect a lot of that $50,000 a year would get burned getting a single camera installed.
      - nisegami 4y ago
        Only if you do it legally
    - InCityDreams 4y ago
      >for $50/yr..... Minimum how many years? I see software doesn't seem to be incuded. Also, your numbers sound like you like to bid for government contracts.

mdrzn 4y ago

It could be easily fixed by having to get a physical OTP from an automated kiosk in the car park to add the license plate to the app.

pelasaco 4y ago
super easy and user friendly. Easy to rollout, to keep a working supply-chain for the physical OTP...
- Rygian 4y ago
  Also known as the ever-lasting tension between security and usability. To protect privacy, I would support an understandable degradation of usability.

kleiba 4y ago

As long as privacy is not a granted right that enables you to sue offenders, there's not much you can do. The EU has at least started to realize the issue but giving the speed of technology vs. the pace of administration, it might be a losing battle.

arbitrage 4y ago
Rights grant you the ability to sue others? Interesting take.
- matthewmcg 4y ago
  Sue others or the government. A right without a remedy isn't really a useful right.
- pc86 4y ago
  I mean, it makes sense. If you have the "right" to $THING, but you have no redress if someone denies you $THING, you don't really have a right to it.
- aqfamnzc 4y ago
  For violating those rights? Yeah, I would think so...
kwhitefoot 4y ago
The use of dash cams is effectively illegal in Austria on privacy grounds: https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/152064/are-dash-cams-illegal-in-austria https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/152064/are-dash-c...
- genewitch 4y ago
  hilariously, most dashcams don't have the optical fidelity to read plates consistently anyhow.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago

Gigachad 4y ago

Just another reason to preference walking and cycling.

hunterb123 4y ago
A bike is a great mode of transportation when you don't need to carry anything heavy, bulky, passengers etc. and when weather permits. It's not a replacement for a vehicle, nor will it ever be.
- closeparen 4y ago
  The Netherlands would like a word.
  - 988747 4y ago
    It only works for short trips. No one rides a bicycle if they have to go to another town, 50 miles away. Also, do not mention: "you can take your bicycle on a train" - if you need to use the train then again you are dependent on public service and traceable.
    - makeitdouble 4y ago
      Passenger cars also don’t work for containers or industrial timber transport. No specific vehicle needs to fit every single use case, if your day to day life involves commuting from a town 50 miles away in the middle of nowhere, so be it. More people live in cities than rural areas, but it doesn’t mean they’ll come to take away your car.
    - andrepd 4y ago
      > It only works for short trips. No one rides a bicycle if they have to go to another town, 50 miles away. 1. Ride your bike into a train 2. Wait 20 minutes 3. Roll out of the train and ride into your destination See, it isn't that hard. What part of this process requires you to be tracked? You don't need any ID to purchase train tickets.

TacticalCoder 4y ago

> Certain tollroad systems, such as France's Bip & Go télépéage, require a physical Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag to be present in the car for authentication purposes. Only if you want to pass the toll / "télépéage" without having to stop for paying "manually" (using a credit card of whatever). I've got one and now you can pass most tolls without stopping (but you need to slow down to about 30 km/h // 20 mph).

skywhopper 4y ago
Transponders (not sure if it’s RFID per se) are common on toll highways in the US and can operate at full highway speeds. But at least with the system I’m familiar with (I-Pass in the Chicago area), if your transponder is broken or missing, they will correlate your license plate to your account via photo.
mig39 4y ago
I recently took a Spanish rental car to Portugal for more than a month. I registered the license plate number and a credit card on the Portuguese tolls website. I then used a bunch of toll highways that were "electronic only" and received the appropriate charges on my credit card a few days later. I think if you're going to set up a toll system in the future, then this is the tech you're going to use. Not RFID or transponders. Just read the license plate and charge the user. There were options, BTW, to pay in cash, with pre-paid cards, etc, that didn't directly tie your identity to the plate. But I assume the rental agency will tie me to the plate, so used my credit card anyway.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  > I think if you're going to set up a toll system in the future, then this is the tech you're going to use. Not RFID or transponders. Just read the license plate and charge the user. In my experience any tolling system set up in the past decade is this way. No worries about transponders, they just have a bunch of cameras over the lanes and then send you a bill. Works even for out-of-state plates.

tluyben2 4y ago

I remember the police claiming they had this tech (license plate recognition) for average speed tracking while it did not work. It also didn’t work but was claimed to work for some toll roads. It helped as people slowed down and paid toll but it didn’t work; it started working years after installing it.

tluyben2 4y ago
I am not supposed to ask on HN but why the downvotes? It’s just an observation from the past (Over 20 years ago)?
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  It's self-contradictory and hard to understand.
  - tluyben2 4y ago
    How self contradictory? Most people believed it worked and slowed down, but driving too fast never got you fined because it didn’t actually recognise your number plate. Unlike normal speed cams which were manual at the time.
    - anigbrowl 4y ago
      > it didn’t work; it started working years after installing it. Nothing personal, it is just not very well phrased and I think you confused a lot of people with the first version.
      - tluyben2 4y ago
        Fair enough!

aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago

As soon as you put a huge identification plate on your vehicle there’s no expectation of privacy.

tremon 4y ago
That's the reason you only ever leave your house in a niqaab, I gather?
giantg2 4y ago
That depends. We could set standards for what information is linked to that plate and to whom it is accessible. (My state actually has a standard for some info which should not be tied to a plate, but they do it anyways. But nobody is going to stop them. I brought it up to the AG's office, but they were complete idiots about it) One could also set up an anonymous LLC and register the vehicle that way if they really cared.
notmyplateslol 4y ago
I didn't put them on there, they already were there when I picked the car up. And every time I try taking them off people get angry at me.
makeitdouble 4y ago
There’s always a point where the amount of data makes it a different thing altogether. Like the difference between hearing random strangers talking on the street, and have a full record of everything that person said outside their home for the past 5 years.
daoist_shaman 4y ago
As soon as you’re birthed in a hospital and issued a birth certificate there’s no expectation of privacy. Unless you’re an off-the-grid baby [0]. [0] https://www.quora.com/Is-it-legal-to-have-an-unregistered-off-the-grid-no-birth-certificate-baby-in-the-USA https://www.quora.com/Is-it-legal-to-have-an-unregistered-of...

avian 4y ago

In my country, the EasyPark app seems to have taken a lot of the market. Almost every parking space I see now has it as an option, including spaces owned by the city. Thankfully, they currently still support paying with cash, but machines often don't return change and only accept coins, so they can be inconvenient. It's shocking to compare the privacy aspect of the app: instead of anonymously throwing some coins into a machine and putting a slip on your dashboard, the app needs: your phone number, your plate number, your credit card details and full GPS access. They're not hiding this: It's explained in their GDPR privacy notice that they track and store your phone location and travel routes even when you're not using a parking space. On top of that, you also pay more for parking when using the app, since they take some percentage commission of the parking cost (apparently depending on your account options, but I never got far enough with the app to find this out)

fubbyy 4y ago
Same in the UK with RingGo.
- InCityDreams 4y ago
  Uk has gdpr?
  - goodcanadian 4y ago
    Yes. All EU law at the time of Brexit remains UK law unless and until it is explicitly revoked/superseded.
rlpb 4y ago
> They're not hiding this: It's explained in their GDPR privacy notice that they track and store your phone location and travel routes even when you're not using a parking space. What you're describing sounds illegal. Under the GDPR they cannot collect personal information that's not strictly required for the service the customer is requesting. Unless they have express permission and the customer isn't denied service for refusing.

someweirdperson 4y ago

Finally. Publish it all. Tracking of every vehicle, visible for everyone. It has been that way with aircraft for a long time. Pilots, however, are such a minority that noone really cares. Now that everyone is impacted, regulation might get updated (or someone might spend the time to identify existing regulation that prohibits this), and that would extend to other vehicles than those with wheels.

ajsnigrutin 4y ago
yep! There are so many people thinking "I did nothing wrong, who cares if I get tracked".... publish it all, and then have all the neighbours have access to that, the wife can see when you left the bar, your boss can see when you left, etc... only then will people be aware that it's not ok to do that. There are also laws (not sure if accepted yet) that all cars should have remote shutdowns/blocks.. for "security reasons" (basically police can shut down your car if they want to)... and I'm just waiting for someone to hack the whole system and shut down all the cars around the world just for fun
- is_true 4y ago
  Ideally other people shouldn't care what you do. But reality is sad
  - makeitdouble 4y ago
    Even beyond nosyness, you might want your elderly parents to stay unaware that you’re checking retirement homes in their area. Or not let your son know you’re working a second job while he’s in college. Privacy is just so important from any angle we put it.
    - is_true 4y ago
      I don't particularly agree with both of your examples, but I share your opinion on the importance of privacy. Citizen surveillance and corruption was the reason I started disliking cameras on public places.

franga2000 4y ago

Would the solution no be to simply allow people to pay for parking twice? There's already nothing stopping you from getting two parking slips at a machine. Just start another parking session for each user and track them independently.

bambax 4y ago

The DB5 in Goldfinger (1964) had revolving licence plates. A cursory Google search comes up with some shady websites that sell similar tech, but it would be a nice DIY project to make a licence plate screen that can be changed on the fly (e-ink based maybe). Has anyone tried it?

nopcode 4y ago
SWIM has a leaf-shaped magnet that can be demagnetised via remote. You put it on the plate so that it cannot be scanned but if police pulls you over it falls off.
bjacobt 4y ago
What about https://reviver.com https://reviver.com ?
rozab 4y ago
This would be flagged immediately. Law enforcement cameras check the plate against the registered make, model, and colour (which are public record in the UK)
- dylan604 4y ago
  What happens if you paint your car? Are you supposed to inform your gov't?
  - tristor 4y ago
    Yes, actually, although generally speaking it's not widely enforced. Generally you won't get caught as long as the color on the registration matches the factory color in the VIN database, but you are supposed to ensure the vehicle description is accurate when you renew your registration and providing false information is a criminal offense, so if the color changes, you should update your vehicle registration.
  - scrumbledober 4y ago
    yes

daoist_shaman 4y ago

Theoretically, could this same principle be borrowed by the open source community… to create a database that tracks and updates the location of police, government, military, and high status individual vehicles? I’m thinking of a decentralized, Web3, IPFS-like distributed database, but instead of file storage, it’s real-time geolocation with OSM on the backend.

Olphs 4y ago
Yes technically, as long as you know the license plates, but how often do those vehicles park in a commercial places like that? I don't think they do often enough for this kind of tracking to be useful
- daoist_shaman 4y ago
  Good point. It would become dramatically more useful if netizens just ran license plate scanners on their dashboards that regular report the timestamped geodata of marked/government vehicles.

pstuart 4y ago

This came up in a thread elsewhere about the severe increase in vehicle thefts in the Portland area. These thefts are not actively investigated by the police, so it would be nice if the owner of a vehicle could get relevant data for the movement/location of the stolen vehicle. Anybody here ever worked with their local PD to get access to the ALPR data? Seems like the work to do it would be more political/bureaucratic than technical.

hedora 4y ago
We tried and failed, but it was not ALPR data. I came to the conclusion that the data is only available to defend the well connected, or to persecute their enemies (at least in the US). I think the creation of mass tracking databases should be illegal. Barring that, every single person should have equal access to it. (Perhaps gated behind filing a police report and swearing it is correct under penalty of perjury.)
- pstuart 4y ago
  Yeah, the thought was that after filing a police report one could track just the related vehicle. Agreed on the dismal assessments, but those DBs are going to be created and we might as well extract some value as citizens. Would you mind summarizing your attempt and any lessons learned (other than the disappointment mentioned)?
  - hedora 4y ago
    The details are kind of boring and out of date. We were repeated victims of minor property crimes. The police spent maybe 5-10 officer hours investigating, which is more than I expected. However, they failed to run a (unusual for them, but legal) database search that would have almost certainly identified the culprits. I think they would have done it if the crime was higher priority for them, but ultimately, they need to prioritize their resources on serious crimes and things that make for good public relations / internal politics (like if we were friends with the mayor or something). As the victims, we had every incentive to pursue the investigation, but no legal ability to do so. I'm well aware that our experience was far, far better than is typical in, say SF or Oakland. In our case, they probably would have made an arrest if we had a positive identification of the criminal. That's not really the case everywhere, which is a separate issue.

slowhand09 4y ago

I'm surprised my idea from 10 yrs ago hasn't been monetized. It was an lcd cover that could be made in license plate size, with a remote controller which could dim/darken/blackout the cover. Or in Deluxe mode, activate lines randomly which would result in a different number. Then again... somebody is out front in this technology space. https://www.newsweek.com/what-are-digital-license-plates-how-do-they-work-1717039 https://www.newsweek.com/what-are-digital-license-plates-how...

green-salt 4y ago
I have seen a video of someone doing just this on a car. I'm not sure if it was a commercial product or if it was something they hacked together.
pol63 4y ago
I’m not. You’re describing a spectrum from a traffic ticket in some states (CA will cite you for darkening) to a misdemeanor or even a felony for falsifying or obscuring your license plate. Yes, you can still buy darkeners in the areas they’re illegal, but nobody is going to invest in developing a misdemeanor machine for sale. There’s a difference between a sheet of dark plastic and an engineered device. The digital plates thought of this in their design. You can think of them as frontend UIs for your jurisdiction’s motor vehicle authority, even though a private company is working on them. They will snitch when your tags lapse, both visually and electronically (that’s their purpose), and won’t let you do what you’re proposing if they’re designed correctly.
mellavora 4y ago
maybe because the device could subject both the buyer and the seller to criminal prosecution?
tmh88j 4y ago
I'm not surprised, it sounds illegal for the purpose you described. It's illegal just to own plate flipping devices without even using them in some states. Surely that would be too. > A person commits an offense if the person with criminal negligence uses, purchases, possesses, manufactures, sells, offers to sell, or otherwise distributes a license plate flipper. An offense under this subsection is a Class C misdemeanor, except that the offense is a Class B misdemeanor if the person has previously been convicted of an offense under this subsection. https://law.onecle.com/texas/transportation/504.947.html https://law.onecle.com/texas/transportation/504.947.html

dublin 4y ago

With the rise of automated license plate readers and tracking databases, we MUST recognize this truth: License Plates Considered Harmful (to privacy and 4th Amendment rights). No, I'm not joking. If we're not going to put serious legal restrictions and penalties on this kind of tracking, the only other viable option is to eliminate license plates entirely. Here in Austin, there is at least one sane City Councilman who is pushing for a maximum 3 minute retention time for license plate scan event data. I expect that would get pushed to 30-180 minutes in reality, but there is no justification for any longer than that...

illiac786 4y ago

What happens if I fill out the form BUT I am an easypark user? Does it delete my account?