the Customs and Border Protection (Customs and Border Protectionfor its abbreviation in English), through Border Patrol (USBPfor its abbreviation in English), was developed by A An internal monitoring system follows the movements of all drivers. The goal is Identify suspicious travel patterns to alert local authorities.
It’s about to A network of cameras that scan and record vehicle license plate information. To determine what your goals are, The algorithm determines where each vehicle is coming from, its destination and the route it took.
Local officers can stop suspicious drivers, In principle due to a traffic violation such as:
Vehicles stopped will not know that they have been previously monitored by the CBP system.
Those selected will be asked to move sideways and stop on the shoulder or a bank.
According to the aforementioned source, USBP It has taken care to hide the details of its license plate reader software for years.
Even so, investigate AP Which included information from eight former officials who knew the program in-depth, who were identified What criteria should the agency determine if a driver is suspicious?
Mostly, Reasons such as driving on rural roads or traveling in a rental car can encourage officers to stop a vehicle..
In turn, Those who do short distances and move to the border area They can also attract the attention of authorities.
License plate readers on highways are usually camouflagedintegrated into road safety elements, such as barriers and traffic control barrels.
According to the aforementioned source. CBP’s surveillance network has seen significant expansion in the United States.So much so that it is not only reaching the border areas, but is now reaching the interior as well. Among other things, Some big cities have these cameras:
The sites mentioned are those that AP He could Verify the presence of several federal surveillance cameras.
Meanwhile, the Donald Trump administration is working to strengthen this system. Without going any further, according to… AP, The President intends to provide Customs and Border Protection with more than $2.7 billion to develop border control systems.Among them is license plate reader software integrated with artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies.
Nicole Ozer“These surveillance systems do not make communities safer,” emphasized the executive director of the Center for Constitutional Democracy at the University of California, San Francisco School of Law.
“They collect huge amounts of information about who people are, where they go, what they do, and who they know.. He complained that they were “carrying out mass surveillance of Americans in the streets, on the highways, in their cities, in their communities.”