Wholesale Surveillance: Boston’s License Plate Scanners

Bruce Schneier:

he Boston Transportation Department, among other duties, hands out parking tickets. If a car has too many unpaid parking tickets, the BTD will lock a Denver Boot to one of the wheels, making the car unmovable. Once the tickets are paid up, the BTD removes th boot.

The white SUV in this photo is owned by the Boston Transportation Department. Its job is to locate cars that need to be booted. The two video cameras on top of the vehicle are hooked up to a laptop computer running license plate scanning software. The vehicle drives around the city scanning plates and comparing them with the database of unpaid parking tickets. When a match is found, the BTD officers jump out and boot the offending car. You can sort of see the boot on the front right wheel of the car behind the SUV in the photo.