There has been increased interest in license plate readers among Virginia homeowners associations. This comes as a response to the growing concerns over neighborhood crime and safety.
Growing Interest in License Plate Readers
According to Fox 5, there has been a growing interest in license plate readers among community associations in Virginia. Neighborhoods across several counties have had concerns about increasing neighborhood crime. Fox 5 corresponded with Flock Safety, an organization that creates these license plate readers. According to Flock Safety, there’s been an increased interest from residential communities, including those in Prince William County.
Many community residents believe these license plate readers can narrow search results for suspects should there be a crime in the neighborhood. The readers would note license plates that come into or leave a community and store the data in a cloud system where law enforcement can use it.
Concerns Over Privacy
Fairfax County already has license plate readers across the area. The information has given law enforcement critical information that helps investigators solve crimes. However, homeowners are also concerned about privacy and how the data will be used and stored.
According to criminal defense attorney Jeremy Rosenthal, people should be careful about their requests. He says it may be all “fun and games” until someone’s son or daughter is caught in the snare. Rosenthal continued by saying people trade security for privacy all the time. They place recorders in their homes that can be used against them or family members. People must be careful with the trade-offs they are making.
On the other hand, Flock Security states they only store information for one month before they erase the data. Some other companies also have similar practices. Moreover, the data stored in the cloud is fully encrypted before being automatically deleted. Flock Security also notes that these license plate readers do not have facial recognition capabilities.
