Some resident in the upscale Paradise Hills neighborhood of Golden, Colorado didn’t consider their monied enclave to be a crime magnet with ‘bullets flying’ and burglars ‘terrorizing’ families - but that’s how the Homeowners’ Association described it in a pitch to install license plate cameras to record drivers entering and exiting Paradise.

“Usually, the car break-ins here are from bears, as opposed to people,” Skip Erickson, 71, told The Washington Post. “And yet suddenly there was this paranoia that we had to protect the neighborhood at all costs.”
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The dark side of paradise

Paradise Hills certainly isn’t the first community to tighten security in a crackdown on crime. Flock Safety - the US industry leader in automatic license plate recognition cameras (ALPR) - has already installed devices in more than 1,500 cities and 40 states which capture data from more than 12bn vehicles every year.

The company says its goal is to ‘eliminate crime while respecting privacy’ but some wonder if community license plate cameras - on top of an estimated 180,000 CCTVs already in use in America - may be a snap too far.

“Location-based information like license plate data can be very revealing,” according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “By matching your car to a particular time, date, and location, and then building a database of that information over time, law enforcement can learn where you work and live, what doctor you go to, which religious services you attend, and who your friends are.”
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Parking McFury‍

The privacy-vs-security debate in Paradise Hills is playing out in cities across the world, and it’s not just police and homeowner associations spying on motorists. Police spy cameras in Scotland capture 1.2m photos of drivers every day and have a stored 442m images of motorists.

Britain has around 11,000 ALPR cameras that submit 50m 'read' records to national ALPR systems every day. The UK Home Office say police use it to detect organized crime, terrorism, and deal with other offenses, so British drivers can be forgiven for wondering why they’re being spied on in parking lots while they do nothing more sinister than sip coffee.

Ian Scates was fined £100 ($130) for leaving his Toyota Yaris in the Petersfield McDonald’s car park for nearly 10 hours although he maintains he’d just picked up a quick, drive-thru coffee and was gone in minutes. Scates, clearly not ‘lovin it’, called the fine a 'totally ridiculous cock-up'.

To be fair to the fast-food chain, parking lots are often run by a private contractor but Scates’ fine isn’t a one-off. Richard Moore was fined $535 at a different location for four breaches because Moore didn’t realize he was only allowed 10 minutes to clear the drive-thru line-up, pick up his fast-food order, and knock back a burger in the parking lot.

Britain has been a world leader in ALPR technology since the 1970s when the Home Office tested the cameras at its Scientific Development Branch. Initially, UK cameras recorded the number plates on vehicles, then converted the video into electronic letters and numbers which authorities checked against stolen car lists, the Center for Crime and Justice said.

From ALPR fines to guns

Fast-forward five decades and police now use ALPR to receive alerts about a car’s move­ments in real-time and review past move­ments at the touch of a button.

During Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the US, police used ALPR to track people driving to and from protests, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. During the Covid-19 lockdown, Rhode Island direc­ted police to look for New York license plates. In 2018, a Florida sheriff's office used ALPR to help in a case involving a person wanted for sex crimes. Sometimes, innocent parties are caught in the net, however.

Brian Hofer and his brother were heading toward Oakland, California on Interstate 80 after a Thanksgiving holiday when they saw flashing police lights. Officers escorted the car off the highway and into a shopping center where police pulled out guns and handcuffs. Hofer told The New York Times he was seated, terrified, in the back of the squad car watching officers push his handcuffed brother to his knees and point a gun at his brother’s head. “I’m sitting ice-cold and saying nothing because I do not want any itchy trigger fingers,” Hofer said.

They were released about 45 minutes later when police confirmed the vehicle was a rental car and that Hofer had paperwork that proved his story.

The spread of surveillance cameras

ALPR use is spreading across the US and Europe, reshaping police forces and private security in both gated and un-gated neighborhoods with 24-hour surveillance. But is it working? A research paper published by the Independent Institute, a non-profit public policy research institute, argues that random luck is as much a factor as ALPR in fighting crime.

“License plate readers can serve a legitimate law enforcement purpose when they alert police to the location of a car associated with a criminal investigation,” the American Civil Liberties Union said. “But such instances account for a tiny fraction of license plate scans, and too many police departments are storing millions of records about innocent drivers.”

Flock Safety argues that its cameras can reduce neighborhood crime by 70 percent, however. “This is not just for million-dollar homes,” Flock’s founder, Garrett Langley, has told journalists. “This is America at its core.”

Stanton, California is one of the many communities on board. The city decided to lease another 26 cameras in 2021, strapping them on street light poles to add to the 10 devices already in use. The cameras snap hundreds of images a minute and can read license plates in real-time on cars traveling more than 100 miles per hour. So far they’ve helped recover at least 25 stolen vehicles.

“We want to virtually gate Stanton,” Allan Rigg, Stanton’s director of public works, said. “And we want a record of cars that are coming into town and those leaving town… so we have a record of vehicles when crimes occur.”

Supporters of ALPR argue that no one on public roads should expect privacy. And if drivers have nothing to hide, why worry?