Name: The small and surprisingly dangerous detail the police track about you
Uploaded: 2014-12-11T16:02:10Z
Duration: 5 min 44 s
Description: A very unsexy-sounding piece of technology could mean that the police know where you go, with whom, and when: the automatic license plate reader. These cameras are innocuously placed all across small-town America to catch known criminals, but as lawyer and TED Fellow Catherine Crump shows, the data they collect in aggregate could have disastrous consequences for everyone the world over.

Catherine Crump: The small and surprisingly dangerous detail the police track about you

The small and surprisingly dangerous detail the police track about you

A very unsexy-sounding piece of technology could mean that the police know where you go, with whom, and when: the automatic license plate reader. These cameras are innocuously placed all across small-town America to catch known criminals, but as lawyer and TED Fellow Catherine Crump shows, the data they collect in aggregate could have disastrous consequences for everyone the world over.

Automatic license plate readers, once a niche technology, now quietly record the movements of millions on American roads. Police departments often store this data for years, creating detailed portraits of daily routines, relationships, and private choices. Even people with no connection to crime, like a father photographed with his daughters in their driveway, end up in government databases. Without clear rules, this quiet tracking threatens basic civil liberties and privacy.