Placeholder image

By Kade Crockford, Director, ACLU of Massachusetts Technology for Liberty Project

Featured Work

News & Commentary
Placeholder image
  • Free Speech and Pluralism

Company Asks Cops to Keep Use of License Plate Trackers Secret

The NYPD may soon become the latest police department to begin paying private license plate tracking corporation Vigilant Solutions for access to the company’s nationwide location database, according to a report in the New York Daily News and documents unearthed by Ars Technica's Cyrus Farivar. By contracting to access Vigilant's rapidly growing National Vehicle Location Service (NVLS), where police will find over two billion records of ordinary Americans’ movements, the NYPD may also sign on to some very questionable secrecy provisions found in the company’s terms of service agreement.
News & Commentary
Placeholder image
  • Free Speech and Pluralism

San Francisco Woman Pulled Out of Car at Gunpoint Because of License Plate Reader Error

A lawsuit pertaining to the use of license plate readers in San Francisco illustrates how dangerous it can be when police officers turn off their eyes, ears, and brains, and mistakenly rely on imperfect technologies to tell them who’s up to no good.