Repo Companies Collecting Data on Where Everyone Is Based on Their License Plates

Here’s one way a repo company makes some money: They drive around in an unmarked car looking for parking lots to go into so they can scan license plates using a license plate scanner mounted on their car. The repo companies are looking for owners of vehicles who have defaulted on their loans, and every time a scan finds a vehicle that’s stolen or in default, the company can make between $200 to $400.

But the scans of license plates of all the other drivers out there don’t disappear — they remain in a database, which private investigators and other people pay to access it providing them with a snapshot of where Americans could be on a specific day, which is now raising the privacy concerns of some people. Some cities want this technology only in the hands of law enforcement and other city agencies, which often have policies to purge their computers of license plate records after a certain date. According to BetaBoston:

Today, a legislative committee in Boston is scheduled to hold a hearing on a bill that would ban most uses of license plate readers, including the vehicle repossession business, making exceptions only for law enforcement, toll collection, and parking regulation…

“Right now, it’s the wild West in terms of how companies can collect, process, and sell this kind of data,” says Kade Crockford of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. “The best legal minds, best public policy thinkers, and ordinary people whose lives are affected need to sit down and think of meaningful ways we can regulate it.”

Photo: J. Triepke

Support The Billfold

The Billfold continues to exist thanks to support from our readers. Help us continue to do our work by making a monthly pledge on Patreon or a one-time-only contribution through PayPal.