EFF: License Plate Readers Left Vulnerable To Hackers

An EFF report and Shodan research found that many PIPS (now 3M) ALPR cameras were reachable from the public Internet without proper authentication, exposing live feeds, configuration panels, and metadata tied to license plates. Researchers harvested tens of thousands of plate captures and used breadcrumbing to identify device owners; the exposure enables real-time tracking and historical location analysis of vehicles, prompting calls for better device security, access controls, and shorter data retention policies.