Fortunately, what my, sadly late, best friend used to call the Lexington Herald-Liberal, which refuses to publish mugshots of criminal suspects, even when those suspects are previously convicted felons, did publish a photo of what these license plate readers look like. This will enable the bad guys to spot them and then destroy them.

Lexington to get cameras that read, track license plates. Here’s how they will be used

by Beth Musgrave | Tuesday, March 15, 2022 | 5:00 PM EDT



Web capture of photo from the Lexington Herald-Leader. Click to enlarge.

There will soon be additional video cameras on Lexington streets.

The city recently partnered with Flock Safety and the National Police Foundation for a one-year pilot study using 25 fixed cameras that automatically read license plates in areas experiencing high crime.

The cameras are expected to be installed sometime in April. It’s not clear where those cameras will be located.

Normally, I avoid photos from the Herald-Leader, but this one is germane to the article; this is the photo used by the newspaper to show everybody what these devices look like, and I include it as documentary evidence that the paper did publish the photo of what the license plate readers look like. Don’t think that the bad guys won’t spot them. Personally, I hope that the bad guys do spot them, and destroy every last one of them.

Further down:

Lowe said the cameras will take six or seven images of a vehicle. The license plate will automatically be checked if it is on various lists including Amber alerts for kidnapped children, stolen vehicles or vehicles associated with a violent offenses. If the reader finds a vehicle on that list, law enforcement will be notified.

Sometimes police also get information from witnesses about cars or trucks leaving a scene. Police can use the cameras to try to find that vehicle, he said.

Lexington Assistant Police Chief Eric Lowe stated that he did not believe that the data gathered could be used for such things as people trying to get access to the data through an Open Records Act request to track someone such as an ex-spouse, but, of course, he doesn’t actually know that, since it hasn’t been tested in a Kentucky court. Nor can he know, now, what changes will be made in the future as far as use of the data gathered will be.

We can’t know, in advance, just what changes will be made to the allowable use of the data, but we know from long experience that whenever the government adds a citizen surveillance method, the uses for it continually expand.