<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>sentenza</author><text>Another data point: Toll Collect in Germany. A fee is collected from Trucks for using the Autobahn, with compliance being monitored via plate-scanning cameras on all Autobahnen. We were assured that the data for cars would not be used for policing, even though it exists (the system scans all plates and only later finds out whether or not the plate belongs to a truck).&lt;p&gt;The data in the system is legally protected and cannot be used by the police. In the ten years that have passed, &amp;quot;security politicians&amp;quot; have been relentlessly hammering this restriction in the hope that it will fall[1].&lt;p&gt;So far they haven&amp;#x27;t been successful, but who knows what the future brings. You can be certain they won&amp;#x27;t stop to try.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&amp;amp;tl=en&amp;amp;js=n&amp;amp;prev=_t&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fde.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FLKW-Maut_in_Deutschland%23.C3.9Cberwachung_des_Autobahnverkehrs&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;translate.google.com&amp;#x2F;translate?sl=auto&amp;amp;tl=en&amp;amp;js=n&amp;amp;pre...&lt;/a&gt;</text><parent_chain><item><author>omh</author><text>The London Congestion Charging scheme is an interesting example of this.&lt;p&gt;There is a network of number plate recognition cameras to enforce the congestion charge. But there were initially assurances that this wouldn&amp;#x27;t lead to a blanket database for policing, they can just request particular images.&lt;p&gt;Pretty rapidly there was an exception for &amp;quot;national security&amp;quot; purposes, and more recently the mayor has proposed giving the police full access to the camera network[1].&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.london.gov.uk/media/mayor-press-releases/2014/02/mayor-to-use-road-cameras-to-deliver-crime-fighting-boost-for&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.london.gov.uk&amp;#x2F;media&amp;#x2F;mayor-press-releases&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Los Angeles Cops Argue All Cars in LA Are Under Investigation</title><url>https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/03/los-angeles-cops-argue-all-cars-la-are-under-investigation</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>josephlord</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve just had an invite to the consultation:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;I am writing to let you know that you can give the Mayor of London your views on his proposals to allow the Metropolitan Police to have access to Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras for crime prevention reasons.&lt;p&gt;We use these cameras to monitor and enforce Congestion Charging and the Low Emission Zone.&lt;p&gt;For more information and to share your views, please click here:[&lt;a href=&quot;http://talklondon.london.gov.uk/content/your-views-cutting-crime-road-cameras&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;talklondon.london.gov.uk&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;your-views-cutting-c...&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;p&gt;To take part in this consultation, please use the link above. Any responses to this email will be passed to the Greater London Authority along with your name and email address, so that they can reply to you directly.&lt;p&gt;This consultation will close on Tuesday 8 April. 	
Yours sincerely,&lt;p&gt;Paul Cowperthwaite
General Manager Congestion Charging&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;My personal view is that scanning and checking against lists is fine but the data for any vehicles not believed to be wanted&amp;#x2F;committing an offence should then be immediately destroyed. I haven&amp;#x27;t fully signed up for the consultation to understand what question is being asked though.</text><parent_chain><item><author>omh</author><text>The London Congestion Charging scheme is an interesting example of this.&lt;p&gt;There is a network of number plate recognition cameras to enforce the congestion charge. But there were initially assurances that this wouldn&amp;#x27;t lead to a blanket database for policing, they can just request particular images.&lt;p&gt;Pretty rapidly there was an exception for &amp;quot;national security&amp;quot; purposes, and more recently the mayor has proposed giving the police full access to the camera network[1].&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.london.gov.uk/media/mayor-press-releases/2014/02/mayor-to-use-road-cameras-to-deliver-crime-fighting-boost-for&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.london.gov.uk&amp;#x2F;media&amp;#x2F;mayor-press-releases&amp;#x2F;2014&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Los Angeles Cops Argue All Cars in LA Are Under Investigation</title><url>https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/03/los-angeles-cops-argue-all-cars-la-are-under-investigation</url></story>