Big Brother is Watching: Your Car's License Plate Isn't Safe! #shorts

Our Take

Dave Linthicum Is Not AI packs a real point into a short-form video: ALPR tech itself isn't new, but what's new is the scale. A camera on a single intersection used to be a local curiosity. Thousands of them networked together, sharing data across jurisdictions and with private companies like Flock Safety, is something else entirely — a rolling record of where you drive, when, and how often, built without most drivers ever being asked.

That's the part that gets lost in the "it's just for catching bad guys" pitch. The infrastructure doesn't know the difference between a stolen car and a reporter driving to a source, a woman leaving an abusive partner, or someone visiting a clinic. Once the cameras are up, the use cases creep, and the audit trails are often thinner than the marketing promises. A 26-second video can't cover all that, but it's doing its job by making people stop and ask who's watching and why.

If this clip made you look twice at the black-and-white box on the pole near your house, check our camera map to see what's already been documented in your area, then head to our take-action page for ways to push back at the city council level.