Name: The small and surprisingly dangerous detail the police track about you
Uploaded: 2014-12-11T16:02:10Z
Duration: 5 min 44 s
Description: A very unsexy-sounding piece of technology could mean that the police know where you go, with whom, and when: the automatic license plate reader. These cameras are innocuously placed all across small-town America to catch known criminals, but as lawyer and TED Fellow Catherine Crump shows, the data they collect in aggregate could have disastrous consequences for everyone the world over.

A very unsexy-sounding piece of technology could mean that the police know where you go, with whom, and when: the automatic license plate reader. These cameras are innocuously placed all across small-town America to catch known criminals, but as lawyer and TED Fellow Catherine Crump shows, the data they collect in aggregate could have disastrous consequences for everyone the world over.

Catherine Crump: The small and surprisingly dangerous detail the police track about you

The small and surprisingly dangerous detail the police track about you

Mass surveillance technology is quietly transforming local police work, collecting data on innocent civilians' daily movements.

Automatic License Plate Readers, while aimed to track criminals, inadvertently create vast databases on the public's whereabouts.

The aggregation of local surveillance data by federal agencies paints a comprehensive portrait of American citizens' private lives.