BY DAVID IZRAELEVITZ
Los Alamos

I would like to present an alternative view in the current community discourse about Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR). I agree that all those cameras surrounding us as we go about our business in public is creepy, but the fact is that our public life has been recorded (and possibly publicized) for a long time, with our explicit or implicit consent, and overwhelmingly to our benefit and comfort.

Remember how we used to feed quarters at highway toll booths? License plate readers now identify every car crossing the highway and we receive a bill that is conveniently payable by credit card. Similarly, parking garages regularly use license plate readers, as I found out once when I lost my ticket. Red-light cameras reduce violations by 40-50% and overall injury crashes by 25-30% as a result (contact me for literature reference). There are obviously many reasons why law enforcement might check your license plate.  In-cruiser and security cameras with automated readers just make the process easier and quicker, and no less legal. In fact, the whole purpose of an automobile license plate is for it to identify the vehicle and its owner for law enforcement or other reasons.

Of course, this plate information can be abused by wayward police officers or government employees, most salaciously for romantic reasons, but consider how many of us use Google Maps. I imagine someone at some point at Google has or may try to use the internal Google Maps database to track their paramour, but how many of us are willing to disable our GPS-Google connection for that possibility or eventuality?

Maybe the fundamental concern is not about cameras, but a instinctive distrust of overarching government. This is a healthy sentiment, but it can be taken too far. Who will audit the auditors that audit our Police Deparment? Well then, who will audit the auditors that audit the auditors? 

Back in 2004, my father was coming to terms with his Parkinson’s diagnosis, when he became quite upset by something I said and drove off in a huff. We were extremely concerned when he didn’t return in a few hours. He was in fact, spending the day in Boston, navigating traffic to peek into the Democratic National Convention and he made it back safe and sound late that evening. It would have been a blessing if there had been a way to monitor every car in the highway to check where my distraught father was headed. I regularly get alerts about missing seniors or teenagers. Monitoring public transportation is obviously helpful in their search.

It is healthy and responsible to consider trade-offs as technology offers our society new capabilities. Not all of these capabilities benefit us, but in this case, the utility of ALPR clearly outweighs the likelihood or impact of abuse, and I endorse its use to make our community safer.