this post was submitted on 22 May 2026
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So, there is actually a point there in that there is a lot of movement data harvested from cell phones, and I think that we could probably improve on the situation there if we wanted. The town government level is probably not in a great place to do that, but compared to ALPRs:
Cell phones can be turned off.
Cell phones can have their GPS stuff and/or location services disabled, though I realize that a limited number of people are going to actually do so. You cannot legally cover up a license plate.
For Android (and I assume iOS, though I haven't looked at the situation there), the OS permission system permits restricting an app permission to data that would permit it to infer location. It may not be perfect
for example, I've seen research projects that try to do things like use accelerometer data and match it to street maps to try to figure out where someone is without access to Bluetooth/WiFi beacons or GPS data. But certainly there are real efforts to limit that.
Google Play Services is the biggest bane of privacy on Google's official Android itself (It feeds motion data to applications without giving you an opt-out). But like you mentioned, people can leave their phone at home, or put it in a Faraday cage, disable Play Services, or install Graphene and local mapping app.
If anybody's intrigued by those options, I hope they follow up on them.
Or better yet, they can be left at home, playing a long-ass youtube playlist. Then you have a decent alibi: you were at home watching youtube at that time, and your phone data proves it.
Yup. This man thinks his argument means we should accept all forms of privacy invasion. He could bring up laws to protect their towns private information via forcing providers to agree to the towns regulations.