Joseph Cox with Motherboard has authored a story on a massive private license plate surveillance network called DRN:
This tool, called Digital Recognition Network (DRN), is not run by a government, although law enforcement can also access it. Instead, DRN is a private surveillance system crowdsourced by hundreds of repo men who have installed cameras that passively scan, capture, and upload the license plates of every car they drive by to DRN’s database. DRN stretches coast to coast and is available to private individuals and companies focused on tracking and locating people or vehicles. The tool is made by a company that is also called Digital Recognition Network.
This Company Built a Private Surveillance Network. We Tracked Someone With It
I wrote recently about private surveillance projects that may meet or exceed government efforts. It won’t be long before the license plate readers are facial recognition scanners. It’s probably happening now.