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Licences Pate Reader camera systems, or LPR, have become all the rage. But now LPR technology is about to cause a new rage, outrage. Turns out that LPR computers don’t work as advertised. The technology is actually based on sweatshops in SouthEast Asia doing all the real work.
How LPR actually works
LPR technology is one that has cameras mounted on top of squad cars. The cameras connected to computers are scanning the licences pates of vehicles on the road. Then the plate information is (allegedly) digitized and ran in the DMV databases.
Recently after a year long investigation it was found that LPR does not work as advertised. Many would say it does not work at all.
Investigators have found that the computers do not digitize the signal. All these cameras do is transmit a video stream to a sweatshop in Asia. There thousands of workers are simply looking at the video stream and typing the plate information into a DMV computer.
Workers in these sweatshops are working 12 hour shifts 5 days a week. Crammed into desks forced to work at old Dell computers. Earning only pennies a day. The work is grueling, but it could be worse. Many say this is better than working in the sweatshops where popular cell phones are assembled.
Speaking on a condition of anonymity an employee of one LPR Technology company had this to say. “The programing for this kind of system is too complex. The computer hardware to run it would be too expensive. By the time we could figure the programming out and get a PC to run it, no police department could afford our system. This is a Win/Win. Cops get a great tool, and we created a ton of jobs in that country.”
The president of a different LPR Technology company would only talk to us off the record. His statements echoed that of the anonymous employee above. He wanted to make sure that we understood that his company was committed to getting LPR to work as promised. But until that time he was sure his company was saving lives here in the US, and improving the lives of workers in Asia.
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