A controversial camera system used by police in Massachusetts to track cars via their license plates has been suspended following the discovery of a glitch that can make the dates and times of some footage incorrect.
Criminal justice agencies and defense attorneys in the state were alerted to the fault by a memo that the state’s Executive Office of Public Safety and Security sent out.
The fault, discovered in November by State Police officials, apparently affects stationary cameras, whose location, date and time information can become inaccurate if the cameras lose power and capture an image before they’ve had time to reconnect to a central server.
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The scope of the problem is hard to know at this point, but the glitch may stretch back to 2015. In the memo, police say that information provided by the cameras should not be depended on without corroborating evidence.
The problem is yet more fodder in the arguments against the cameras which have been criticized by privacy advocates. Speaking with the Boston Globe, Kade Crockford, director of the Technology for Liberty Program at the ACLU, argued that this glitch is demonstrative of what’s wrong with cameras like these that can track anyone in a car without a warrant or a court order.
“Like with facial recognition and other newer forms of surveillance, there’s too many risks that something will go wrong if this is left entirely to the executive branch of the government to run in secret,” Kade said. “We have to remember that these technologies are not perfect and they are never going to be perfect.”
The technology was challenged in Massachusetts’ top court recently, when police used it to get alerts any time a car registered to alleged drug dealers crossed the Sagamore Bridge which spans the Cape Cod canal.
The court ruled that the cameras do not violate privacy protections, but only under limited circumstances. It also cautioned that it would elevate privacy issues if police used it to collect information without proper justification. Data from the cameras, though, is already being sent to private companies. Repossession firms, parking lot operators and other businesses like banks and insurers have been buying data collected by these cameras.
Still, the technology is largely unregulated in Massachusetts and other states. Whether or not the glitch will lead to any action on cases that used the information is unclear. However, the Boston Globe reports that attorneys were quick to call state officials asking for more details on how the new information may affect past and ongoing cases.
