By John Chigos

I?ve been reading about a series of FBI emails the ACLU recently obtained that demonstrate that the Bureau was ?wrestling? with privacy issues related to their use of LPR. The emails do not give any detailed information on what issues they were facing or what was done, but they do make clear that the FBI?s purchase of LPR equipment was temporarily suspended in the spring of 2012 due to this controversy.

The issue of privacy violation with respect to LPR has been in the news for several years now, and all of the discussion and all of the rhetoric seem to be aimed at only one solution: governmental regulation.

I have written at length about my opinions on this matter and have always supported reasonable regulations on LPR. The problem we often face, however, is that many so-called privacy rights advocates and politicians that support them, want restrictions on the technology that are decidedly unreasonable.

A perfect example is the recent Virginia bill that would have forced the deletion of data not immediately related to an investigation after seven days.

As I have repeatedly stated, the use of historical LPR data going back weeks or even months is often critical to establishing a behavior pattern that indicates the need for an investigation in the first place. Furthermore, none of those who argue against such data collection seem to have a problem with it if it is done manually; rather, only LPR is the ?Big Brother? Boogeyman because it can do more and do it faster.

Fortunately, the Virginia bill was vetoed by Governor Terry McAuliffe, thus preventing the elimination of a capability that would keep untold numbers of criminals and/or terrorists from slipping through the cracks.

It seems to me that we ought to consider other ways of addressing these issues without necessarily resorting to the blunt instrument that is the law. More to the point, I have often wished that not only agencies interested in LPR, but also groups like the ACLU would come to us, the builders of the technology, to find the best ways to protect individual liberty without sacrificing LPR?s unquestionable effectiveness.

My company, PlateSmart, has dedicated itself to that question since we rolled out our first Mobile LPR solution. We were the first to equipt our software with a built-in Data Retention Policy, which would enable users to schedule LPR capture data for automatic deletion after a designated period of time.

Now, we are achieving another first by introducing a complete Audit Trail system for our solutions. This will ensure that every informational query made through our ARES enterprise video analytics system is thoroughly documented and all users are held accountable for their searches.

We are also including automatic redaction technology from TeraDact, which can ?scrub? unrelated personal data from every query and guarantee that no information is accessed without authorization.

Most importantly, the new data integrity features of ARES will function with any LPR database that a user needs to access, whether PlateSmart was used to gather the data initially or not. All searches can be done safely through ARES.

I believe that we at PlateSmart are creating a very viable solution to address the privacy issues that are far more effective than Draconian regulations could ever be.

With our audit trail features in place, data retention periods cease to be an issue, since the authorities would always know how the system was being used and could immediately detect any illegal or unethical activity on the part of any user. Our automatic redaction functionality, on the other hand, would ensure that no user saw any data they did not need to see to accomplish their task.

Now, data can be stored for long periods of time and only accessed when it is needed; no one?s privacy is violated because the system prevents it. Our goal in implementing these new data integrity features is to enable more agencies to adopt LPR and give them a tool for data analysis that can help reduce the number of attacks they must endure from the very people they are tasked to protect.

My point here is really quite simple – we in the industry are the creators of LPR and we know best how to shape it to fit the needs of security agencies and private citizens alike. We have proven that at PlateSmart. I hope that in the future, agencies will turn to the industry players with their concerns; if they do, then perhaps we can avoid instituting regulations that would render this valuable technology all but useless.

About The Author:
John Chigos is the Founder, Chairman & CEO at PlateSmart Technologies, Inc. http://www.platesmart.com/