DEA using license-plate readers to take photos of US drivers, documents reveal

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/05/aclu-dea-documents-spy-program-millions-drivers-passengers



Vigilant Solutions, a California company, announced last October that it had developed an app that integrated facial recognition technology into automated license-plate readers.

DEA using license-plate readers to take photos of US drivers, documents reveal
Rory Carroll
Thursday 5 February 2015

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is using license-plate reader technology to photograph motorists and passengers in the US as part of an official exercise to build a database on people’s lives.

According to DEA documents published on Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the agency is capturing images of occupants in the front and rear seats of vehicles in a programme that monitors Americans’ travel patterns on a wider scale than previously thought.

The disclosure follows the ACLU’s revelation last week about the potential scale of a DEA database containing the data of millions of drivers, which kindled renewed concern about government surveillance.

The latest published internal DEA communications, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, show that automated license plate scanners, known as ALPRs, record images of human beings as well as license plates.