They’re Now Tracking Your License Plate

Now we find out that our government and private companies are taking pictures of your license plates — and storing that information.

According to an article from the Wall Street Journal, apparently every day across the United States they're using high-speed license plate cameras being utilized by both law enforcement officials — and, yes, private companies to track the movement and activity of citizens across the country.

And what are they doing with the pictures of your license plates? Well, according to the Wall Street Journal, "that information is being stored in massive governmental and private databases, where it is subsequently sold to third-party companies for commercial usage or used by law enforcement officials to assists in arrests and seizures. And, for the most part, there is no oversight on the practice."

This government program was originally set up as a function of the Drug Enforcement Administration and, at the time of its inception, its stated goal was to aid law officers in combating drug trafficking.

Another problem with this practice is there has been no real legislation to attempt to rein it in and only the state of Utah has refused to feed its license plate data into the federal registry, which means Michigan does.

I have a huge issue with this. But should I?

Do you have a problem with your license plate being photographed with your location and time information attached to it?

Your car is in the public, so does it really matter?

Let’s us discuss this today on my show the Live with Renk show, which airs Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to noon, to let me know your thoughts at (269) 441-9595.

Or please feel free to start a discussion and write your thoughts in the comment section.