To me this is strange. In the UK I'm so used to ANPR I just assumed my car is tracked wherever I go. There were a few incidents when the automatic speed cameras first came out, filling them with expanding foam so they exploded etc but even those died out after a while.
Police in the UK are held to a much higher standard, and the culture in the UK is much more tolerant of government control.
I’m also going to guess that there are significant access controls on the systems in the UK that would prevent things like tracking an ex, or cops using ALPR to see if you have visited a healthcare facility that offers abortions among its other services (both real examples).
I could be wrong, but I don't think the UK has a network of privately owned ANPRs that can create ~complete pictures of people's comings and goings, and that data has effectively zero legal protections whatsoever.
Automated speed cameras are fairly common in the US but are obviously not a surveillance network.
I'm not sure I've ever noticed a single one or had a ticket from any or heard of anyone ever getting a ticket from one. They don't seem common in my experience, or maybe it's just like an east coast thing because I've never lived in that part of the US.
Not a surveillance network you know of. Knowing what we know now, why wouldn’t it be tapped, if they could get away with it?
Well for one, there's not nearly enough of them to be valuable the way that Flock is.
Two, they're pointed exclusively at roads.
Three, their outputs don't show up in court cases as evidence, which itself dramatically reduces the danger (even if they potentially could maybe support parallel construction)
Speed and stop cameras are very very good and should be virtually everywhere with extremely strict control on their outputs.
I see you haven’t heard of parallel construction.
You see that I haven't heard of the thing that I explicitly mention in the exact comment you just replied to?
In any case, an evidence modality that can only be used via parallel construction is still far, far, far less risky than one that can be freely introduced in court.
We have the bill of rights baby
Just because the UK has become a dystopian hellhole with cameras everywhere, Internet censorship, and repeated attempts are ending anonymity online, does not mean that other places should follow suit without resistance.