FLOCK automatic number plate recognition
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In 2014, The Department of Homeland Security proposed a federal database to combine all monitoring systems, which was cancelled after privacy complaints. In 1998, a Washington, D.C. police lieutenant pleaded guilty to extortion after blackmailing the owners of vehicles parked near a gay bar. In 2015, the Los Angeles Police Department proposed sending letters to the home addresses of all vehicles that enter areas of high prostitution.
Early private sector mobile ANPR applications have been for vehicle repossession and recovery, although the application of ANPR by private companies to collect information from privately owned vehicles or collected from private property (for example, driveways) has become an issue of sensitivity and public debate. Other ANPR uses include parking enforcement, and revenue collection from individuals who are delinquent on city or state taxes or fines. The technology is often featured in the reality TV show Parking Wars featured on A&E Network. In the show, tow truck drivers and booting teams use the ANPR to find delinquent vehicles with high amounts of unpaid parking fines.
===== Laws =====
Laws vary among the states regarding collection and retention of license plate information. As of 2019, 16 states have limits on how long the data may be retained, with the lowest being New Hampshire (3 minutes) and highest Colorado (3 years). The Supreme Court of Virginia ruled in 2018 that data collected from ALPRs can constitute personal information. As a result, on 1 April 2019, a Fairfax County judge issued an injunction prohibiting the Fairfax County Police Department from collecting and storing ALPR data outside of an investigation or intelligence gathering related to a criminal investigation. On October 22, 2020, the Supreme Court of Virginia overturned that decision, ruling that the data collected was not personal, identifying information.
In April 2020, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court found that the warrantless use of automated license plate readers to surveil a suspected heroin distributor's bridge crossings to Cape Cod did not violate the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution only because of the limited time and scope of the observations.
=== Average-speed cameras ===
ANPR is used for speed limit enforcement in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Dubai (UAE), France, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, South Africa, the UK, and Kuwait.
This works by tracking vehicles' travel time between two fixed points, and calculating the average speed. These cameras are claimed to have an advantage over traditional speed cameras in maintaining steady legal speeds over extended distances, rather than encouraging heavy braking on approach to specific camera locations and subsequent acceleration back to illegal speeds.
==== Italy ====
In Italian highways there is a monitoring system named Tutor covering more than 2,500 km (1,600 miles) (2012). The Tutor system is also able to intercept cars while changing lanes. The Tutor or Safety Tutor is a joint project between the motorway management company, Autostrade per l'Italia, and the State Police. Over time it has been replaced by other versions for example the SICVe-PM where PM stands for PlateMatching and by the SICVe Vergilius. In addition to this average speed monitoring system, there are others Celeritas and T-Expeed v.2.
==== Netherlands ====
Average speed cameras (trajectcontrole) are in place in the Netherlands since 2002. As of July 2009, 12 cameras were operational, mostly in the west of the country and along the A12. Some of these are divided in several "sections" to allow for cars leaving and entering the motorway.
A first experimental system was tested on a short stretch of the A2 in 1997 and was deemed a big success by the police, reducing overspeeding to 0.66%, compared to 5 to 6% when regular speed cameras were used at the same location. The first permanent average speed cameras were installed on the A13 in 2002, shortly after the speed limit was reduced to 80 km/h (50 mph) to limit noise and air pollution in the area. In 2007, average speed cameras resulted in 1.7 million fines for overspeeding out of a total of 9.7 million. According to the Dutch Attorney General, the average number of violation of the speed limits on motorway sections equipped with average speed cameras is between 1 and 2%, compared to 10 to 15% elsewhere.
==== United Kingdom ====
One of the most notable stretches of average speed cameras in the UK is found on the A77 road in Scotland, with 32 miles (51 km) being monitored between Kilmarnock and Girvan. In 2006 it was confirmed that speeding tickets could potentially be avoided from the 'SPECS' cameras by changing lanes and the RAC Foundation feared that people may play "Russian Roulette" changing from one lane to another to lessen their odds of being caught; however, in 2007 the system was upgraded for multi-lane use and in 2008 the manufacturer described the "myth" as "categorically untrue". There exists evidence that implementation of systems such as SPECS has a considerable effect on the volume of drivers travelling at excessive speeds; on the stretch of road mentioned above (A77 Between Glasgow and Ayr) there has been noted a "huge drop" in speeding violations since the introduction of a SPECS system.