• empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 hours ago

    These aren’t about speed anymore, they’re all turning into auto license plate readers run by private corporations for an infinite surveillance dragnet

    • Annoyed_🦀 @lemmy.zip
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      32 minutes ago

      You don’t have a speedtrap issue, you have private vulture issue. Signing the enforcement right to private company is a recipe for disaster.

    • AmbitiousProcess (they/them)@piefed.social
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      2 hours ago

      As much as it’s true that a lot of these cameras are just becoming other ways to engage in surveillance, it’s also true that they do a lot to manage speeding. For example, NYC had a 94% reduction in speeding in areas with the cameras. It’s also true that most existing speed cameras simply aren’t equipped to be converted into ALPR systems. Most ALPR deployments are done via the installation of brand-new hardware, which many places simply can’t justify the additional, new costs of.

      This can be done with minimal surveillance capabilities, and often is in many places. (local compute board identifies license plates, calculates speeds, sends them to an isolated cloud service, and only forwards data to the police department if it was actually a speeding infraction, otherwise the data is wiped) The ALPR cameras are primarily being installed in specific areas, but aren’t always across-the-board implementations, and sometimes avoid entire cities.

      For example, ALPRs are becoming popular around Washington, but the Seattle police department only has a few ALPRs solely mounted on vehicles, but zero mounted in stationary locations. (“SPD’s ALPR cameras are not fixed in location”) These aren’t even used for speeding cases, but are used for missing vehicle cases, and the speeding cameras are entirely separate.

      It doesn’t make sense to eliminate all cameras, even the speeding ones, just because other cameras can be ALPRs. We should simply advocate for removing ALPRs, not speeding cameras. This is why organizations like the EFF, dedicated to protecting people’s privacy, have previously argued against these cameras broadly not because speeding cameras are also bad, but because the way those speeding camera systems were designed allowed them to also be used as ALPRs. However, I haven’t seen a single case of them arguing against cameras that are solely speeding cameras with limited capacity for surveillance, because it’s just not a very big issue.

      Sorry, long rant 😅

      • frizzo@piefed.social
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        2 hours ago

        Fuck your spy cameras. If speeding was really an issue they have the technology to prevent it. Every day I hear dumber and dumber ideas and thoughts and I just want to move out of this country.

        • SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml
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          2 hours ago

          If speeding was really an issue they have the technology to prevent it

          Like building alternatives to cars so not every dipshit, 15 year old, and elderly person, are forced to share the road

      • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 hours ago

        damn that sucks bro, I’m cutting down the camera anyway because we live under the beginning fourth reich and surveillance must be fought.

        Maybe police should go back to being visible on the street to control driver behavior and city road design be built around calming traffic patterns, instead of using completely undercover normal looking vehicles for traffic enforcement and then raking in millions of dollars by sitting on their ass and letting the camera do all the work?