The Mountain View City Council has voted to put up 24 license plate readers around the city — a decision that comes amid a growing debate over how to balance crime concerns and a right to privacy. Scott Budman reports.
The Mountain View City Council has voted to put up 24 license plate readers around the city — a decision that comes amid a growing debate over how to balance crime concerns and a right to privacy.
The readers work by capturing a still image of the back of each car that drives by, which it then compares against plates in a law enforcement database. The hope is that it will help catch criminals.
Residents tell NBC Bay Area that they have mixed feelings about the readers.
“Just like security cameras outside homes deters burglars, let’s hope — and I believe it will — do a similar thing when it comes to vehicles,” said Mountain View resident Michael Klein.
“I can see what they’re trying to do,” said another resident. “But the problem is, it’s a slippery slope.:
"This is definitely a privacy violation in that it records all of us whether we’re guilty of anything or just driving around going about our business." said Irina Raicu, the director of the Internet Ethics program at Santa Clara University's Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.
But police say the focus isn’t on individuals or their data.
“It helps us to identify vehicles that are flagged in the system for a reason,” said Mountain View Police Captain Saul Jaeger. “So a vehicle that’s been involved in a shooting, or a homicide potentially , or even missing persons and things like that.”
The department said it will never use the readers for facial recognition, traffic citations, immigration enforcement or out-of-town abortion investigations.
Get a weekly recap of the latest San Francisco Bay Area housing news. Sign up for NBC Bay Area’s Housing Deconstructed newsletter.
