Submitted by tensai on
I ran across a site today named Leads Online. It's a tool for law enforcement to collaborate with pawn shops and the like. Essentially the pawn shop uploads all of its transactions at the end of the day and then if a law enforcement agency is looking for some stolen stuff, they search through the database. Leads Online tells how it's such a convenient and easy service, and helps good guys catch the bad guys.
My first thought was substantially different. I don't really relish in the thought of law enforcement having carte blanch access to business records, possibly without warrants. There's some good potential for abuse there. I recently read through all the Idaho Falls city ordinances (yes, it was actually interesting) and I'm aware that pawn shops are required to keep records of purchases for 2 weeks (IIRC), just in case a question of ownership arises. But there is not a requirement for them to proactively send those details to the police department. That seems to be a fair trade.
One immediate concern I have is that being a private company, they are not subject to laws that courts and police would be. They don't have to answer Freedom of Information Act responses. They aren't subject to public oversight. I don't think we should be outsourcing our key public infrastructure to private industry whose primary motivation is the almighty buck.
Even more than that, what really scares me isn't the intended uses but the ways the system could be expanded. There are all sorts of ways the database could be reused for marketing purposes, thus invading the privacy of sellers and buyers alike. There are pathetic privacy laws in the country, so it's hard to believe that anyone would have any recourse.
And what if law enforcement decided they wanted to browse through the database? The obvious abuse would be looking for religious material. Yeah, it seems pretty unlikely but the point isn't that we trust good people. I know a few law enforcement people and I would have no qualms with them using something like this. The point is that just as there are unscrupulous citizens, there are unscrupulous police. We need to make sure the system fails gracefully and I don't believe this one does.
2 Comments
Sort of on subject. Our
Submitted by Nammy (not verified) on
Sort of on subject. Our city recently considered an ordinance to have a photo taken of all pawn transactions, sellers that is. They already are required to have surveillance cameras. I don't know - where do you draw the line in fighting crime and conducting business?
Re: Sort of on subject
Submitted by tensai on
Your reasoning is spot on. It's not a question of "will it catch more bad guys" or "will it infringe on civil liberties". The question always should be, "are the costs worth the benefits". The costs in this case are the expense of taking photos, the hassle of doing business and the infringement on personal liberty. The benefit would presumably be catching evil doers. It would of course be wise to do an objective analysis first and make sure that taking pictures would in fact catch somebody. In my mind, that's a tough sell but I'm sure others would argue differently. I expect that most people don't weigh the costs and benefits rationally, but let fear drive their decisions.