Consumer advocates are warning that controls are needed to protect the motorists' data recorded by commercial outfits, reports the New York Times. "It's a huge Pandora's box," says Jack Gillis of the Consumer Federation of America, citing the potential for "tremendous violations." Database and auto-repossession companies are among those who use automatic license plate recognition technology in their daily operations. Advocates say that, among others, this begs the following questions: How long are the photos stored? How secure is the data? Is the data shared? Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center offers a scenario of misuse, noting that while many companies say their data is encrypted, "you have to ask, 'who has the key?'" (Registration may be required to access this story.)
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