Big Brother traffic cams able to get perp's lic plates?

[Big Chudungus]

Seems every town in CA, or at least Bay Area, got all these traffic cams and some were robo-ticketing Red Light Runners, etc.

Recently, I've had to make a few 9/11 calls in various cities to report perp's fleeing in cars of which I had a decent look at but not able to get Lic Plate # and cops always ask "did you get the LP?" and when I say "no" they seem to lose most interest. All of these cars had both come and gone through several major intersections to and from crime scene (most cat theft which I'm told IS priority for cops at this time).

Crimes include Oakland where they don't even offer to make report or send cops, and Walnut Creek and Cupertino where two SUVs and three smart cops show up in about 2 minutes.

IIRC when all these cams were being installed the legal was "Well, its in public so the Govt can do as much CCTV spying as they want, no permission required, etc" and also that "Hell yeah, these cams can record Lic Plate #s, that's the whole point".

Did some big Court ruling quietly happen that now its a big Paper War for cops to pull LP# off Big Brother cams? Did all these cams get brought but now towns are paying some service fee so they are now dead?

Is there some policy to only pull BB footage for major time critical crimes like kidnapping?

PS-I've heard even if perps have put stolen plates on get away that is "still very useful" and I guess why cops still ask for LP#s even for pro-heists like bank robbery.

[P5Ret]

You should probably do some fact checking on your assumptions.

[IrishJoe3]

You should probably do some fact checking on your assumptions.

Definitely this.

Most If not all of those CCTV looking cameras at intersections are there to control the traffic lights (As I've been told). They don't take pictures or videos, they record nothing and there is no live feed to view.

[????? ????]

OP should probably read this FAQ at https://ncric.ca.gov/html/California...LPR%20FAQ_.pdf about Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR) from Northern California's HIDTA.

There's also a California Auditor's report about ALPRs at https://www.auditor.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2019-118.pdf

And each local law enforcement agency should have an ALPR policy somewhere on its website.

[Tankhatch]

Chief of OPD, said they get 2,000 calls a week. (murder to lost cats)
BLM politics and city council political whims, Kalifornias Governor, have made small crimes / big time crimes, epidemic in Oakland.
Empathy towards OPD.
Opinion,,,, good luck with getting any plate reader pics, for non-murderous situations, in Oakland.

[Big Chudungus]

Good info, so I guess no active CCTV for traffic.

But I remember it was a big stinking deal that all these towns were getting Big Brother cams that were really expensive "but it Fed money" and concerns about Civil Liberties.

One story names Oakland as "city that beat Big Brother" but others didn't?

2nd story has a town thinking about spending its own money for CCTV on roads.

Police surveillance: The US city that beat Big Brother - BBC
https://www.bbc.comhttps://www.desertsun.com

[GizmoSD]

[freshtracks]

You should be more interested in the flock cameras not the red light ones. And yes they can get your plate and yes they are watching you.

[Big Chudungus]

I'm not thinking of low level traffic violators, but seems like you're always hearing stories about perps doing burglaries (home, biz and auto, and muggings) and all the cops and news got is vague description of get away car and perps in hoodies.

In such a case The System would be reviewed "manually" at times/locations for pics of perps car including at least some of LP #.

PS-I hear its common for perps to use legit borrowed cars of GF, moms, homies, etc which I assume is also with legal plates intact so should be able to figure out who perp is even if legal owner ain't snitching.

[boattail]

We had an LPR where I work for a time. You needed to know the plate info to do any searches for vehicles.....it read plates....that is it. I'm sure there is current technology to run a search based on location and time of day but we did not have it 15 years ago.

We could plug in a plate and were able to see every time it drove by the cameras. The one we had read and stored every plate number that passed in front of it. It would compare the plates to hot sheets and sound an alarm when a match was made. The majority of hits were failed to return rental vehicles.

Our whole system was taken out by a lightning bolt.....with no funds for repair it just went away.

[1911su16b870]

You should be more interested in the flock cameras not the red light ones. And yes they can get your plate and yes they are watching you.

https://www.flocksafety.com/

Flock is interesting as their model is private subscription based. Web/cloud based approach that allows the lessor of their system to provide footage to whomever they wish via a link.