How the Feds Get Your Data
US grant rules are pushing cities to send license-plate data into federal surveillance systems.
404 Media reports that the Trump administration is using a 1980s anti-drug trafficking grant program to require cities to send automated license plate reader data, including from Flock and similar systems, into large federal surveillance centers under White House jurisdiction. Public records and court documents indicate that data may be kept longer and searched by more agencies than local residents expect. The report focuses on how locally collected surveillance data is funneled to federal systems.
- Federal anti-drug grants are used to compel ALPR sharing.
- Plate data goes to White House-jurisdiction surveillance centers.
- Flock and similar license-plate reader systems are included.
- Federal retention and search access may exceed local expectations.
Full article235 words · extracted from 404media.co · click to collapse
Surveillance isn’t just about who is collecting the data. Surveillance is, of course, also about who that data ends up with. A great story from Jason today looks at that with Flock and other automatic license plate reader (ALPR) data: some local cops are being forced to feed their ALPR data into obscure federal systems where that data may be kept for much longer than usual, and searched by many more people and agencies than the residents being surveilled probably realize.
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How Cities Are Forced to Funnel License Plate Data to a Massive Federal Surveillance Program
The Trump administration is using an anti-drug trafficking grant program from the 1980s to force cities around the country to funnel their ongoing collection of automated license plate reader data into large federal surveillance centers that fall under the White House’s jurisdiction, according to public records and court documents reviewed by 404 Media.
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Text extracted automatically; images, tables and formatting may be missing. Original: https://www.404media.co/how-the-feds-get-your-data/