https://cdt.org/blog/government-keeps-its-eyes-on-the-road-with-invasive-lic... On April 2, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) that describes how the DHS Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) – including ICE’s primary investigative offices, Enforcement and Removal Operations and Homeland Security Investigations – will find the present and past location of drivers by accessing a massive private database of vehicle location information. The program raises serious privacy concerns, with the specter of individuals’ location data being collected on a mass scale, stored for a prolonged period, and used without effective restrictions. According to the PIA, both fixed and mobile license plate readers record license plate number, a digital image of the license plate, the vehicle’s make, model, and state of registration, GPS location, a time stamp, and sometimes “the environment surrounding a vehicle, which may include drivers and passengers.” A private company – probably Vigilant Solutions, which has amassed of database of 2.5 billion license plate location records, will hold the data. ICE can then use license plate numbers to query a database, and provide a “hot list” of license plate numbers under surveillance to the private company so that when there is a hit on one of those numbers, ICE will receive immediate notice of the location of the license plate. Queries can uncover all recorded sightings of a license plate for the previous five years, or as far back as the statute of limitations for the crime being investigated. ......