April 17, 2018 - 6:30pm PDT
Oakland

Mapping Back: Using Public Records to Map Police Surveillance on Roadways

On roadways across the country, police and private companies alike regularly collect data on every driver's travel patterns through automated license plate reader technology (ALPR), camera systems that scan license plates to create enormous databases in real time. This form of surveillance is both ubiquitous and indiscriminate, and can be used to reveal private information about drivers and to map out relationships between drivers.

What if we could gain access to the same data, and map them back? In this Maptime, Dave Maass, a senior investigative researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has been involved in efforts to do just that. Starting in 2015, EFF began mapping data collected in Oakland to reveal how police are using ALPR. Today, he is helping file 1,000 public record requests with the goal of mapping out how police departments are sharing records with each other. EFF aims to create a detailed snapshot of ALPR mass surveillance network that links law enforcement and other government agencies nationwide—including ICE—by requests to multiple police departments beyond California

What: Maptime SF/Oakland

Date: Tuesday, April 17, 2018 

Time: 6:30 - 9:30 p.m. 

Where: Oakland, CA (Location available upon registration)