PrivacySOS writes:
Immigrations, Customs Enforcement wants to firm up its relationship with Vigilant Solutions, the most dominant actor in the increasingly powerful license plate reader industry, to enable agents to more efficiently track down people they want to deport. Vigilant maintains a national database, called the National Vehicle Location Service, containing information revealing the sensitive driving histories of millions of law-abiding people. According to the company, the database currently contains nearly 2 billion discrete records of our movements, and grows by almost 100 million records per month.
Read more on PrivacySOS, who updated their post in light of headlines saying DHS had withdrawn its proposal with this important note:
UPDATE: DHS says that ICE leadership was not consulted about this bid for solicitations, and that it has been withdrawn. Jury’s out about whether or not ICE leadership is aware that its agents have already been accessing data in Vigilant’s nationwide license plate reader database for years. Will they now look into it? Stay tuned…