Coming not even a month after the official implementation of the Real ID program
Automatic license plate readers are the most widespread location tracking technology you’ve probably never heard of. Mounted on patrol cars or stationary objects like bridges, they snap photos of every passing car, recording their plate numbers, times, and locations. At first the captured plate data was used just to check against lists of cars law enforcement hoped to locate for various reasons (to act on arrest warrants, find stolen cars, etc.). But increasingly, all of this data is being fed into massive databases that contain the location information of many millions of innocent Americans stretching back for months or even years.
You might think that license plate flippers are only used by secret agents and other movie anti-heros who need a quick getaway, but apparently you can buy them in real life—and not just for nefarious purposes. More »