Vigilant Solutions is a company that takes photographs of cars and trucks using its network of cameras. What’s the big deal, traffic cameras are always recording our plates? Well not only is Vigilant Solutions taking photos of your license plate, but they are retaining your vehicle’s location data along with the photo of your license plate, AND they are selling it. To date, Vigilant Solutions has taken approximately 2.2 billion license plate photos in almost every major city across the United States. Among Vigilant Solutions customers (i.e. those buying your license plate numbers and locational data), 300 of them are law enforcement agencies. You might think to yourself, ‘Well don’t the police need to get a warrant to put a GPS tracking device on my car,’ and the simple answer is yes, but to get years of data on your vehicles location all the police have to do is pay Vigilant Solutions.
Vigilant Solutions subsidiary’s website, Digital Recognition Network, says, “All roads lead to revenue with DRN’s license plate recognition technology. Fortune 1000 financial institutions rely on DRN solutions to drive decisions about loan origination, servicing and collections. Insurance providers turn DRN’s solutions and data into insights to mitigate risk and investigate fraud. And our vehicle location data transforms automotive recovery processes, substantially increasing portfolio returns.” Is this reminiscent of George Orwell’s 1984? With this type of tracking technology becoming more and more affordable, we are sure to see an increase in its use before an end. As consumers (and individuals with constitutional rights) we should all be aware of this and speak up for our privacy rights.