Push for nation-wide car tracking system in U.S.

Published 18 September 2008

Two companies quietly shopping new motorist tracking options to prospective state and local government clients; goal is to create a nation-wide car tracking system in the United States by using existing and newly installed red light cameras and speed cameras

Private U.S. companies are hoping to use red light cameras and speed cameras as the basis for a nation-wide surveillance network similar to one which will be active next year in the United Kingdom. ussie company Redflex and Scottsdale, Arizona-based American Traffic Solutions (ATS), the top two photo enforcement providers in the United States, are quietly shopping new motorist tracking options to prospective state and local government clients. Redflex explained the company’s latest developments in an August 7 meeting with Homestead, Florida officials. “We are moving into areas such as homeland security on a national level and on a local level,” Redflex regional director Cherif Elsadek told the Newspaper.com. “Optical character recognition is our next roll out which will be coming out in a few months — probably about five months or so.”

The technology would be integrated with the Australian company’s existing red light camera and speed camera systems. It allows officials to keep full video records of passing motorists and their passengers, limited only by available hard drive space and the types of cameras installed. To gain public acceptance, the surveillance program is being initially sold as an aid for police looking to solve Amber Alert cases and locate stolen cars. “Imagine if you had 1,500 or 2,000 cameras out there that could look out for the partial plate or full plate number across the 21 states where we do business today,” Elsadek said. “This is the next step for our technology.”

ATS likewise is promoting motorist tracking technologies. In a recent proposal to operate 200 speed cameras for the Arizona state police, the company explained that its ticketing cameras could be integrated into a national vehicle tracking database. This would allow a police officer to simply enter a license plate number into a laptop computer and receive an email as soon as a speed camera anywhere in the state recognized that plate.

Such programs would be consistent with existing law on searches and seizures. In the 2003 case Washington v. William Bradley Jackson, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled that police could not use a physical GPS tracking device to monitor a suspect’s movements without first obtaining a warrant. No warrant would be needed or restrictions applied to license plate tracking systems which do not require any physical contact. Instead, individual police officers could monitor the movements of suspected criminals or even their wives and neighbors at any time.

In the United Kingdom, officials are planning to expand the use of average speed cameras that track cars over distances as great as six miles. Records on all vehicle movements taken from a nationwide network of cameras will be stored for five years in a central government Automated Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) server, allowing police to keep tabs on criminals and political opponents. Work on the data center in north London began in 2005 and officials expect real-time, nationwide tracking capability to be available by January.