How police are using license plate readers to solve and thwart crimes
The short version: MichiganDOT's segment on freeway shootings sells license plate readers as a crime-fighting slam dunk while glossing over who else gets swept up in the dragnet.
Our Take
Credit to MichiganDOT for putting a camera on this story, but notice the framing: a few freeway shootings become the justification for a surveillance network that logs every plate that passes, not just the ones tied to a crime. That's the pitch law enforcement and vendors like Flock Safety always lead with — the dramatic case, the scary headline from the Detroit News — because it's a lot easier to sell than the quieter truth that these systems are hoovering up location data on millions of innocent drivers to maybe catch a handful of bad actors.
What the video doesn't get into is retention policy, who has access to the data, whether it's shared across agencies or states, and what happens when the system is wrong. Michigan drivers deserve to know those answers before any agency expands a network like this, not after. 'It helped solve one case' is not the same as 'it's worth normalizing persistent tracking of everyone.'
If you want to see how far this has already spread, check our camera map and find out what cameras are watching your own commute — then use our take-action guide to push back where it counts, at your local city council or county board.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of MichiganDOT, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.