Strange Unmarked Car

headed over to the local Home Depot to grab a few things yesterday.  Leaving, I saw a unmarked Nissan going up and down the lanes at a pretty good pace.  I first I thought it was some yahoo looking for something to grab or a Uber driver looking for their fare.  Then I noticed that the back of the car had 4 OCR License plate readers attached. Can't figure out if the local LEO has contracted out some of their work or If a repo man is just looking for cars.  Stupid story, just wondering if anyone might have an idea what might be going on

Obviously, they are tailing you.

Private party repo man. 

He has the car wired with internet. The readers scan plates in popular places. If the reader makes a hit he will follow the offender and call in his company wrecker to pick it up. 

Yep, repo man looking for cars to tow.

Also, there is absolutely no regulation concerning what license plates he can scan, tag with a GPS coordinate and timestamp, and put in his database.  And if he does store that information, there's no regulation on what he can or cannot do with that data or with whom he can share it.

Generally speaking, not a huge fan of ALPR in its current regulatory state...

Repo man or shady government surveillance activity? Actually it's both:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-surprising-return-of-the-repo-man/2018/05/15/26fcd30e-4d5a-11e8-af46-b1d6dc0d9bfe_story.html

I guess a 4 door Versa sedan is the modern interpretation of a 4 door '64 Malibu. 

Could be a lot of things.  Repo is one possibility.  Could also be for databases that track vehicle locations by license plate. 

wae said:

Yep, repo man looking for cars to tow.

Also, there is absolutely no regulation concerning what license plates he can scan, tag with a GPS coordinate and timestamp, and put in his database.  And if he does store that information, there's no regulation on what he can or cannot do with that data or with whom he can share it.

Generally speaking, not a huge fan of ALPR in its current regulatory state...

Having dealt with a lot of repo agencies, most of them are either (A) too scared of the possible repurcussions of this, as they have too many large clients that would drop them, or (B) too stupid to figure out that they could store this information and sell it. Obviously that doesn't encompass all of them which means it is a glaring problem.

John Welsh said:

I guess a 4 door Versa sedan is the modern interpretation of a 4 door '64 Malibu. 

I can only wonder how many will get that reference.  Probably more than a few.

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

I may have screwed up the reference. 

The '64 Malibu was the target car to get repo'ed.

The repo men themselves drove a' 71 Impala so in this instance the Versa is the modern interpretation of a '71 Impala. Not as good. 

Come on Otto... let's go do some crimes.

GameboyRMH said:

Repo man or shady government surveillance activity? Actually it's both:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-surprising-return-of-the-repo-man/2018/05/15/26fcd30e-4d5a-11e8-af46-b1d6dc0d9bfe_story.html

In short, they're vehicle-borne versions of the Gargoyles from Snow Crash.

Let's eat sushi and not pay

In reply to Jumper K Balls :

I blame society!

The parking garage company when I get the train uses them to see who paid for a space.  Instead of walking all the lots checking tags on mirrors the attendant just drives through them.

The city police drive around you here to catch expired license plates at $550 a crack.

Seems like a good opprotunity for some good old Johnny drop'tables vanity plates.