Auto and motorcycle theft is big business, no surprise there. Sometimes it’s a professional job, sometimes a joyride, sometimes part of some other crime but recognizing a stolen vehicle quickly among the hundreds of thousands a police car encounters is one tough job.
Help is on the way, the Mobile Plate Hunter 900, even sounds high tech and it is. It’s a product of Remington-Elsag Law Enforcement Systems, a partnership between Remington, the firearms company and Elsag, an Italian company that developed high speed character recognition systems for the post office. Adapting their system to work on a patrol car, it can read a license plate at normal patrol speeds, check it against a computer database of stolen vehicles and notify the officers if there is a positive match. Officers manually confirm the match before stopping the car. It has been tested in Ohio and is currently being tested in Los Angeles, California and it is currently installed and in use in Italy and other countries.
High rates of crime in any area lead to the need to respond in an effective way. Whenever tested, this system has resulted in the recovery of many stolen vehicles and the arrest of many thieves and other criminals. It’s a good use of technology.
via Wired
James - Whybike.com says
Then there is the big brother issue. If this technology is volontary, then great. But the practical uses for the State seem too intrusive. I guess reading the license plate number off to dispatch and returning the registered owner is the same thing, but make it instantaneously able to scan hundreds of cars in a parking lot and enter them into a database and you might land in trouble if you gather too frequently with “undesireables”.
kneeslider says
Yes, this could be abused, the police can always potentially abuse their powers but at some point we have to allow the police to use available technology to apprehend criminals and protect the rest of us.
All common technology has a dark side. If you use your cell phone a lot, you leave a perfect trail of where you were at what time every day and who you talked to. They can also save our life in an emergency. Credit cards leave the same trail and detail what you purchased but allow us to shop without carrying wads of cash. Security cameras all over the place show comings and goings but reveal the criminal waiting to attack. The IP address of your computer records where you were on the net. Internet phone books tell the world where you live. And on and on …
Convenience has a price, so does safety. Not many people would be willing to give up their cell phones or credit cards or have all of the security cameras turned off because of potential abuse. It’s the price we pay to live in a world with more than a few who would do us harm. If you want to “drop off the grid” so the State doesn’t know where you are or what you do, be prepared for a primitive life. Of course, all of the bad guys could just be nice …