On an early fall afternoon in 2023, midway through a shift in Pawtucket’s District Five, Rhode Island police officer Noel Pichardo noticed a strange camera perched on a utility pole over West Avenue.
\n\nPichardo was 28, five years into the job, and alone in his cruiser during one of the brief lulls between responding to the typical churn of radio calls for domestic disputes, petty disturbances, and welfare checks. The camera was compact and solar-powered, angled down toward passing traffic. Pichardo made a U-turn and drove beneath it again, more slowly this time, to get a better look.
\n\nHe then began searching for the cameras on roads near highway ramps, at major intersections, along the routes into and out of the city. He found them again and again. By the time Pichardo finished circling the district, he knew exactly where he had seen them before.
\n\nTwo years earlier, officers had gathered on the second floor of a small police substation in Pawtucket for a presentation about a surveillance system made by Flock Safety. A high-ranking police official stood in front of a PowerPoint and explained that the company’s automatic license plate readers could identify passing vehicles not only by their…
Original source: https://www.wired.com/