Saturday, October 13, 2007

Character Recognition Technonlogy Leads to Arrest

Big brother be damned, this thing help get a child predator off the streets.

License plate recognition tools led to abduction arrest
Demian Bulwa, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, October 13, 2007

The swift arrest of a San Jose man in the abduction of a 12-year-old girl this week was aided by an eye-opening gadget that can scan the license plates of a street full of cars and instantly alert police to which vehicles have been reported stolen.
It was a breakthrough moment for license plate recognition, a technology that is spreading to law enforcement around the Bay Area - and is prompting privacy concerns.
San Jose police Officer Max Boyer was on routine patrol Monday, hours after the girl had been rammed with a stolen car and pulled inside while she was walking with her sister in the Willow Glen neighborhood. Police said her attacker had tried to sexually assault her before she fought back and escaped barefoot.
As Boyer passed by parked cars, one of four cameras mounted on his cruiser seized on a plate, compared its characters to a database of stolen cars and triggered an alarm.
"Stolen car," a computer voice said. Boyer pulled up next to a white Toyota sedan, which investigators soon concluded was the one that had struck the girl.

Read more here.

No comments: