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One answer is that ALPRs have much too high an error rate (John Oliver claims it exceeds 30%) to rely on them for dragnet surveillance. Maybe it makes sense to
by tadfisher 1mo ago
One answer is that ALPRs have much too high an error rate (John Oliver claims it exceeds 30%) to rely on them for dragnet surveillance.
Maybe it makes sense to track specific vehicles, with safeguards such as warrants and also checking make/model/color, but it makes less sense to just give the government a 30-day rolling database of the public's movements in total, especially when 30% of those data points are inaccurate and thus not useful as evidence.
- tptacek 1mo agoI don't know where this stat comes from. It doesn't square with our experience of Flock cameras. There is a truly high error rate in the underlying hotlist data the state maintains and the cameras rely on. But, like, cameras randomly flagging the wrong car, I don't think we saw that happen even once.
- doc_ick 1mo agoPlenty of reports of that
- _DeadFred_ 1mo agoOne California town found Flock's license plate cameras were wrong 71% of the time https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/06/california-town-says-flock-cameras-misread-license-plates-71-of-the-time/ https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/06/california-town-says-flo...