It's practically impossible to build a system that "can't be abused". If you set the bar there, then you can block any policy forever by simply enumerating increasingly unlikely ways for it to be abused. It's like a child's version of politics.
I could go into my car right now and plow through a bunch of people. I'm still allowed to own a car. We've made the actual harmful act illegal, not the thing that theoretically made it possible.
At the same time, we do not allow people to have nuclear bombs.
As everything in life, it's a trade-off, but a good trade-off can only be found if people are fully aware of the consequences. It seems to me, people regularly underestimate the negative consequences of data collection (or realize that these consequences will not affect them, but others).
> It's practically impossible to build a system that "can't be abused"
For ALPRs? I’d make queries public with a short delay, including with a unique identifier for the cop initiating the query. Data automatically deleted within an interval.
And then you feel comfortable guaranteeing that it could never be abused?
The issue is being brought up by the state auditor. This article is literally what would happen anyway if your pet policy was enacted. The police would ignore your little policy, and the standard would have to write an article about the abuse. Hopefully that article would drive public opinion enough for change to happen.
This is the system working.
> police would ignore your little policy
Sorry, I meant to make it technically impossible to query the data without producing a public log.
thats how it is now though ?
One, an officer could put fuck you in that field and execute the search.
Two, those queries aren’t automatically public.
> an officer could put fuck you in that field and execute the search.
then what is the proof for the title of this post
> Oakland cops gave ICE license plate data; SFPD also illegally shared with feds
Well they didn't. The reason we just read the article we read was because they looked in the logs, and the logs included well written reasons that were illegal. So they wrote an article.
How does stopping them from writing "fuck you" in the field (which they provably didn't, considering they found the queries), or giving you access to it, help in any way in this situation? You're going to have to make an argument here for it to make any sense.
> I’d make queries public with a short delay…
Won't that likely victimize people who are presumed innocent of crimes until convicted?
> Won't that likely victimize people who are presumed innocent of crimes until convicted?
Don’t see why. My plate could be scanned because I’m a criminal, or because I’m a witness or a victim.
It could. The content of the query may heavily imply one or the other.
Yes just explain that in the court of public opinion. I’m sure nobody will jump to conclusions.