this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2026
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449
Traffic Camera Captures Woman Driving With Her Phone on Her Lap (Face Down), The State Mailed Her a $1251 'Public Safety' Ticket (www.gadgetreview.com)
submitted 11 hours ago by spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works to c/technology@lemmy.world
74 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

A woman drives with both hands on the wheel. Her phone sits face-down on her lap. No officer pulls her over. No lights flash. Weeks later, a $1,251 ticket arrives in the mail. The evidence: a single frame from a Camera surveillance app. The charge: phone use while driving.

Automated camera companies market their devices as automated license plate readers — tools for catching stolen cars, flagging warrants, and aiding serious investigations.

Sold as a Crime Tool. Used as a Fine Machine.

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[–] spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works 8 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

Should breathalyzers be mandated in every vehicle because of the number of deaths due to drunk drivers? Should there be mass pedestrian surveillance with facial recognition to prevent crime because there are lots of criminals that use sidewalks?

The problem with any kind of mass surveillance is the information gathered will always be misused because that's what those in positions of power always do. Police officers are already using camera information to monitor the whereabouts of their exes and girlfriends. Now the data's being used as a revenue source, not for public safety.

Another example - Schools remotely enabled cameras on their student's PCs and actually monitored what students were doing in their own bedrooms. Administrators saw absolutely nothing wrong with it and tried to punish those students if they didn't like what they saw.

In my opinion there isn't any possibility for a happy medium, it's eventually going to be all or nothing.

[–] infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net 1 points 38 minutes ago* (last edited 26 minutes ago)

You think that automated radar-based speed enforcement of those that go 15MPH over the limit in school zones during school hours with no detrimental effects to license status is a slippery slope to a panoptic AI surveillance state?

Because personally I think that as a society we can and should agree upon reasonable tests for overreach and abuse of technological systems, and build automations that respect those tests.

We both agree that AI surveillance is bad. You just stumped against it for a whole comment, but I already said AI surveillance is bad. That was not my point, my point is that I find this article's approach to the problem of AI surveillance problematic in that it's leveraging the reaction that drivers have toward any automation whatsoever to make an emotional case against AI surveillance that I feel amplifies pushback against otherwise reasonable automations that catch egregiously dangerous use (eg The radar cameras in place in NYC) an muddiest and important distinction. I just don't like the way this article is pitched.