In 2018, Brian Hoffr and his younger brother were driving to meet their parents for thanksgiving. This should have been a regular journey.
But that evening he found himself at the tip of the gun by a group of law enforcement officers.
This phenomenon was the result of technology being wrong. Hofar’s vehicle was marked as theft by an automated license plate reader – ALPR -system. When he left, the reader alerted the officers.
“Your life is definitely different when you point guns on you,” he said.
The incident is one of more than a dozen cases verified by CBS News, which is being misused by incorrect stagnation during six months of investigation and many examples of ALPR technology.
The results of the ALPR errors can be inconvenient – such as the wrong toll booth charge – potentially dangerous, such as armed detained of huffer. In some examples, technology was used by the authorities improperly, such as in Kansas, where the law enforcement officers used license plate reader systems to stare at the pre -partners in two separate incidents.
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ALPR system emergence
At least in use In the late 1990sAutomatic license plate reader systems have progressed quickly in recent years. They now marry with high speed, high-resolution cameras, in which each license with artificial intelligence passes through a specified area of vision to scan the plate. Data are compared to license plate numbers in the database.
Thousands of agencies use these systems daily to scan plates in real time and identify potential matches. Departments use as alprs A crime-fighting equipment Along with collecting evidence for investigation and reducing crime -for traffic compliance.
According to a survey by Bureau of Justice Statistics, every Police department The information on overseeing more than 1 million citizens used technology, as 90% of Sheriff offices were with 500 or more oath -taking depots.
Law enforcement officials told CBS News that technology has allowed them to do their work more efficiently and helped to solve crimes from stolen vehicles to missing persons.
Pat Yoose, National President of the National Fratritary Order of Police, an organization of hundreds of thousands of oath law enforcement officers, said in an email statement to CBS news that the ALPRs are “extraordinaryly important, in cases where there is an immediate threat to life or security, such as a kidnapping or a target can be an armed threat to a target.
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He said that transparency is important. He said in the statement, “The community should be made aware of new technology, how it is used in the region, how it contributes to public safety, and how it addresses any privacy anxiety.” “Technology like ALPRS is a valuable tool for many law enforcement agencies to secure their communities.”
The emergence of the ALPR system comes as law enforcement agencies across the country, which recruit staffing and challenges. A 2024 survey By the International Association of Chiefs of Police, a professional union found that American agencies were working in about 10% of staffing deficit. ALPR technology is a way to help fill this difference in manpower.
Why license plate readers make errors – what we got
License plate reader errors can occur due to various reasons. In some cases, letters or numbers are interpreted by optical character recognition, or OCR, software incorrectly. As National Highway Traffic Safety AdministrationGeneral issues, including dazzling or wrong cameras, can affect accuracy. CBS News found that mistakes are often caused by a mixture of machines and human or administrative errors.
In Espanola, New Mexico, a 12-year-old man was handcuffed, when an ALPR camera actually terminated the final number of license plates on a vehicle operated by his elder sister as “7” instead of “2” instead of “2”, which was actually terminated according to a lawsuit filed against the city. A month later, in a separate event, a 17 -year -old Honors student was held from school at his home at a gun tip at the tip of a gun, when the authorities misunderstood their vehicle for a person associated with a person who was being sought in relation to a string of armed robbery.
In Arora, Colorado, in 2020, a mother and her family, including her 6 -year -old daughter, were pulled at the tip of the gun and forced to lie on the warm sidewalk. Again, the ALPR technology was central for stops. Police accidentally marked their colorado license plate as a completely separate vehicle from a separate state – a stolen motorcycle registered in Montana. The video was captured and widely condemned, in 2024 the city had a $ 1.9 million.
Confidential and accuracy concern
ACLU warns that ALPR cameras can violate civil rights and violate the fourth amendment of the Constitution by encouraging improper discoveries. Despite comprehensive use, there is no federal legislative structure for ALPR use.
Hofar, who has been involved in privacy advocacy for more than a decade, is now Executive Director Safe justiceAn organization aims to reduce the government and corporate overache. He says that manual verification is necessary to see whether Alpr “hit” or match, accurate. Nevertheless, he said, such checks are insufficient because data errors can cause a plate to “match” a data in a database.
“America has billions of scans a day. If there is only 10% error rate, it means that there are many opportunities for misuse.”
Some concerned citizens are taking action. Last year, residents of Norfolk, Virginia filed a federal case against the city, and in Illinois, two inhabitants have sued Illinois State Police on the ALPR system, arguing that their use violates the fourth modification rights. The latter case was rejected in April without prejudice.
Contributed to this report.
