Used to be a cop. A few friends were assigned to the Auto Theft Unit when these things first rolled out. Every day, someone in the unit would go to a website ran by the insurance companies and they would download all the newly reported stolen cars onto a thumb drive and then dump that info into the laptops. In Atlanta, at the time, it was only for stolen vehicles/plates, car jacked vehicles.
What the company sells: These machines can be on cars; in traffic cones; on street posts. They said that with just the fines from “no insurance tickets” the machine could pay for itself in a few months. They can program the computers to do whatever they want. They can just look for stolen cars/plates, wanted persons, no insurance, no registration.
Basically, one big fishing expedition. Not unlike out government collecting all that data w/ the NSA, one could guess.
In Atlanta, and a lot of other places, there are dozens of cars equipped with these devices. Weird thing is, most cities have ‘no chase policies’ in place for everything except violent/forcible felonies. So, stolen cars don’t get chased anymore like they did back in the day. Too much liability.
Your government hard at work protecting and serving its citizens.
Just last month a homicide in my PA county was solved thanks to LPRs deployed by the Missouri State Patrol—got a hit on the fugitive’s vehicle and now he is awaiting extradition.