Vehicle location data

Automatic number plate recognition

Vehicle registration plates may be automatically scanned with equipment, mountable on vehicles, that identifies an image characteristic of a registration plates, takes a photograph, and reads and records the registration number. Such scanning may be done by government or private industry. Private industry collects this information for profit through, directly or indirectly, activities such as consumer profiling and repossession. Companies have collected over 1 billion scans of registration plates in the United States, stored in multiple national databases.