Police use license plate readers all over the world, with it a common technique to scan and alert the police to anything from uninsured drivers to stolen vehicles. A downside to this technique is that the technology can be found in any vehicle used by the police, including those which are unmarked, or that is unmarked except for Google maps stickers.
The police force in question is the Philidelphia Police Department who were caught by professor of computer science, Matt Blaze, from the University of Pensylvania.
WTF? Pennsylvania State Police license plate reader SUV camouflaged as Google Street View vehicle. pic.twitter.com/0z4yo2rVoR
— matt blaze (@mattblaze) May 11, 2016
The end result was a statement from Lt John Stanford of the police department, who stated that they had been ” informed that this unmarked vehicle belongs to the police department; however, the placing of any particular decal on the vehicle was not approved through any chain of command”. While the decals were then ordered to be removed, Lt Stanford has since clarified that the vehicle in question was not a company car, before saying that they were looking into the matter.
While the department has claimed this is the first and only time this technique was used and while not approved, the concept of sticking identifying decals on unmarked cars to fool the public is not one used by the police at all.
