Two weeks after residents showed up at Meridian City Hall to raise concerns about “mass surveillance,” the city’s police department presented to elected officials on its use of automated license-plate reader cameras.
The artificial intelligence-powered cameras, which scan traffic and automatically pull license plate numbers into an online database, have become a fixture of thousands of law enforcement agencies across the country. In recent months, the cameras have generated backlash and even threats of lawsuits in the Treasure Valley, the Idaho Statesman has reported.
Concerns reached Idaho’s second-largest city on July 7, when four residents testified during a Meridian City Council meeting that license plate cameras in Meridian posed a threat to individuals’ privacy and amounted to “constant mass monitoring.”…