Vashon Enters the Surveillance Age
By Marc J. Elzenbeck
Imagine you’re a county or municipal administrator in a cash-hungry jurisdiction and you see a demo of an Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) system. These are typically “green” solar-powered cameras mounted along high-traffic public thoroughfares to capture vehicle images, license plates, make, model, color, and designated characteristics.
The sales rep reels off a list of compelling benefits: painless installation and integration with local and national databases; 24/7 crime deterrence, and proven rates of reduction; improved traffic safety; quicker arrests and property recovery; full customer data ownership; custom configuration; cloud-based storage; and only deployed where there’s no legal expectation of privacy.
The pitch might come from a vendor like Flock or Axon, leaders in the digital surveillance and evidence management fields. Honestly, it would be hard not to sit there and think, “Hoo-Doggies! We could open up a whole new revenue stream here in Mayberry with just a few of these babies!” Admittedly, it’s a target-rich environment. According to the Insurance Research Council’s latest report, about 1 in 7 United States vehicles (15.4%) drove without insurance in 2023. Here in Washington State, CARFAX figures that 593,000 non-commercial vehicles, about 10%, currently drive with expired registrations.
With the ALPR cameras, you’ll see everything from a hawk-like perspective, a searchable, zoomable panopticon for not just outstanding warrants, but past infractions, accidents, complaints, judgments, changes in address, passengers, Amber Alerts, weight, credit scores, hair color, turn signals, fender dents, and political affiliations.
Passively, you could hook the camera system up to a printer, send out infraction notices and watch the moolah role on in. If the lawbreakers contest or don’t pay, you can just tack on higher penalties or send in the debt collectors. Actively, you could set filters to alert local law enforcement to criminals who’ve gone unnoticed.
Are flock cameras being considered for installation on Vashon? What law-abiding Islander wouldn’t want this? Well. There are some slight problems. I started building automated or “AI” systems in my early twenties, for languages, trading, predictive risk, and financial and actuarial applications. Even when proficient, all systems have gaps and flaws stemming from technical and human factors, as follows:
1. Recognition and transaction processing systems are at best sandcastles, eroded or washed away by unpredictable tides of change.
2. They’re also a paradox – the better the system you build, and the more temporarily enriched users rely on it, the more severe the consequences become when it’s wrong.
3. Schemes can be tricked. Motivated humans facing them interact, observe, and adapt.
4. They over-promise cost savings by ignoring the importance of corner case errors.
Starting small, how many of us have gotten false toll bills? I have. Rain, sun glint, dirty plates, covers, these all drive error rates up. The toll tech is very good, equal to or better than Flock and Axon cameras.
But getting bigger, what if I want to avoid a toll, or go joy-riding around the Island spray-painting memes onto businesses? No problem. Simply alter the license plate. Or switch it out, preferably with a vehicle of the same make and color. I could steal a truck from off-Island, knock over an ATM, and be gone.
Probably best to stop that line of thinking. And move on from there to the temptation for surveillance abuse. What if someone sees an opportunity for blackmail, or ICE starts offering $10,000 rewards? Regardless of encryption, permissions, or licenses, there’s no substitute for solid law enforcement and human nature remains the weakest link in secure systems.
The municipalities that have rolled out these panopti-cams report mixed results, and some have been very disappointed in terms of financial and social rewards.
At their next meeting on January 15th, the Vashon-Maury Community Council will discuss Flock cameras. To them we’ll extend a “thank you” in advance, and ask, remember when Kurt Lysen was the Sheriff in this town? He had a bumper sticker on the back of his cruiser that said: “At Least I’m in Front of You.”
