I now know I am OFFICIALLY on some sort of watchlist! Yippee!
The list is supposedly not exhaustive, but I recommend everyone to search your plate to see if you’ve been tracked. I worry for the safety of the women who have been searched more than 50 times by the same user.
Hey everyone, go put your plate into this system. It’s totally not a scam to collect license plates that aren’t any ready on the list.
Surely there are already databases containing all the license plates that have been issued. The useful thing is tracking where people go. So what would such a scam achieve?
Yeah the license plates are issued by the government. Do people not think there is a database already.
It’s the data point for tracking movement. Learning routines. You don’t think data centers are just there for Claude and Grok, do you?
For example, like saying Dultas goes from their house to a location near X 4 days a week, at this time, rarely varying, in a 2001 Toyota RAV4. Dultas shops at X grocery on Thursdays after leaving work. Dultas is also seen pulling into the parking lot of a strip that holds X businesses. Based on other data, the probability he’s at the gaming store X every other Saturday for several hours is. Given Dultas’ shopping data and store data in that lot, he’s probably part of one of the dungeons and dragons groups using space in that shop. Dultas broke pattern and was seen near the ICE protest on Aigust X-X while his cell phone remained at his home location. Dultas’ shopping data shows he purchased 2 burner phones from Walmart on August X.
Like that.
I’m making stuff up on the fly and it still reads as creepy and dystopian. It’s not the info so much as the context it provides as relates to you.
You obviously didn’t read the original comment that this discussion was about. It was about entering your own license plate into the lookup database to see if it was being tracked. Which none of your post has any relevance to.
You do realize that license plates are government issued plates attached to your identity and that they keep lists of those plates…right?
Because it would be incredibly silly if you thought otherwise.
OH SHIT THE GUBMIT GONNA GIT MA NAME! MA NAME MA PA GIVE ME!
Cops obviously could find your license plate number if they want to, the DMV is a state agency who’s whole point is literally keeping track of stuff like that
I punched in plates from the parking lot to see if anything good came up. Sorry to get you added to a list, randos.
Did anything good come up?
Actually one that came up had the reason tags “INVESTIGATION” “INCEST”. Not really out of place for the area tho.
The link that article provided showed you that information?
Yeah. I thought that was a little fucked up.
Did they get hatsune miku?
It’s not being run by a government agency or anyone affiliated with flock, so it’s probably fine.
Totally not being sold.
To who, and for what? At least conspiracy theories used to make sense
If you think the government is the only organization using your data against you friend, you’re living in a different era. Insurance companies, banks, ad farms, private security, AI tech giants, etc., etc., ad nauseum are all using your public and private profile to shape every second of every day. Testing your limits, tracking your movements, mapping your relationships, your buying patterns, and making you dance like a puppet for their entertainment.
The government is the least scary of the groups shaping your world, because at least there’s hypothetically an accountability mechanism in the democratic process. Public, private, it really makes little difference, if you trust any of them without question, you’re playing yourself
What’s the business case here for this example?
The obvious example is how Facebook tracks your physical location and nearby devices to determine what ads to serve you. That’s often why people think Facebook is listening to them and serving them ads for things they mentioned in casual conversation but haven’t searched for themselves. They didn’t search for it, but their friend did, and they know if you get an ad for that thing you’re more likely to click through based on potential word-of-mouth effects. They’re using your IRL social network and physical location as an extension of their ad algorithm.
I’m skeptical, but to play devil’s advocate: I guess it could help a data broker that had some information attached to a license plate number, perhaps including your identity. When you enter your license plate number into this web search, they can associate the IP address and browser fingerprint of the request with the license plate and therefore with your identity and any other data in the first database. This enables them to connect your identity and your vehicle to whatever online activity data they have for that IP address and/or browser fingerprint.
To sell you something or control you.
How would a company knowing your license plate number help with that. I don’t want them to have it (or anything else), but I legitimately cannot think of a use case
To sell to other companies so they can compare your data on various sources.
…what could your license plate number even be used for
Tell me your license plate number and the state/province and I’ll tell you a lot about you.