License Plate Readers Are Creating a US-Wide Database of More Than Just Cars

At 8:22 am on December 4 last year, a car traveling down a small residential road in Alabama used its license-plate-reading cameras to take photos of vehicles it passed. One image, which does not contain a vehicle or a license plate, shows a bright red “Trump” campaign sign placed in front of someone’s garage. These images were generated by AI-powered cameras mounted on cars and trucks, initially designed to capture license plates, but which are now photographing political lawn signs outside private homes, individuals wearing T-shirts with text, and vehicles displaying pro-abortion bumper stickers—all while recording the precise locations of these observations. A search result for the license plates from Delaware vehicles with the text “Trump” returned more than 150 images showing people’s homes and bumper stickers. “I did a search for the word ‘lost,’ and it found the flyers that people put up for lost dogs and cats.” Beyond highlighting the far-reaching nature of LPR technology, which has collected billions of images of license plates, the research also shows how people’s personal political views and their homes can be recorded into vast databases that can be queried.