Een artikel in The Washington Post toont voor welke doeleinden camera’s met nummerplaatherkenning gebruikt kunnen worden. Blogster Melissa Ngo wijst erop dat de camera’s aan steeds meer databanken gekoppeld worden en dus steeds meer gegevens opslaan dan oorspronkelijk bedoeld. In Chesterfield County (Virginia) worden de nummerplaten zelfs vergeleken met een databank van de belastingdienst. Function creep, noemen ze zoiets. En creepy, ook dat.
More than 250 cameras in the District and its suburbs scan license plates in real time, helping police pinpoint stolen cars and fleeing killers. But the program quietly has expanded beyond what anyone had imagined even a few years ago.
With virtually no public debate, police agencies have begun storing the information from the cameras, building databases that document the travels of millions of vehicles.Beyond the technology’s ability to track suspects and non-criminals alike, it has expanded beyond police work. Tax collectors in Arlington bought their own units and use the readers to help collect money owed to the county. Chesterfield County, in Virginia, uses a reader it purchased to collect millions of dollars in delinquent car taxes each year, comparing the cars on the road against the tax rolls.