{"id":134693,"date":"2026-03-25T04:17:57","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T07:17:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tech.einnews.com\/article\/901607293"},"modified":"2026-03-25T04:17:57","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T07:17:57","slug":"alpr-tech-now-preventing-parents-from-enrolling-their-kids-in-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/2026\/03\/25\/alpr-tech-now-preventing-parents-from-enrolling-their-kids-in-school\/","title":{"rendered":"ALPR Tech Now Preventing Parents From Enrolling Their Kids In School"},"content":{"rendered":"
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from the making-being-awful-more-efficient<\/i> dept<\/h3>\n

All the people who have always brushed off concerns about surveillance tech, please come get your kids. And then let someone else raise them.<\/p>\n

Lots of people are fine with mass surveillance because they believe the horseshit spewed by the immediate beneficiaries of this tech: law enforcement agencies that claim every encroachment on your rights might (MIGHT!) lead to the arrest of a dangerous criminal.<\/p>\n

Running neck and neck with government surveillance state enthusiasts are extremely wealthy Americans. When they\u2019re not adding new levels of surveillance to the businesses they own, they\u2019re scattering cameras all around their gated communities<\/a> and giving cops unfettered access<\/a> to any images these cameras record.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how it plays out at the ground level: parents can\u2019t get their kids enrolled in the nearest school because of surveillance tech. In one recent case, license plate reader data was used to deny enrollment because the data collected claimed the parent didn\u2019t actually reside in the school district<\/a>. <\/p>\n

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Just over a year ago, Thal\u00eda S\u00e1nchez became the proud owner of a home in Alsip. She decided to leave the bustle of the city for a quiet neighborhood setting and the best possible education for her daughter.<\/em><\/p>\n

However, to this day, despite providing all required paperwork including her driver\u2019s license, utility bills, vehicle registration, and mortgage statement, the Alsip Hazelgreen Oak Lawn School District 126 has repeatedly denied her daughter\u2019s enrollment.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Why would the district do this? Well, it\u2019s apparently because it has decided to trust the determinations made by its surveillance tech partner, rather than documents actually seen in person by the people making these determinations. <\/p>\n

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According to the school district, her daughter\u2019s new student enrollment form was denied due to \u201clicense plate recognition software showing only Chicago addresses overnight\u201d in July and August. In an email sent to S\u00e1nchez in August, the school district told her, \u201cAlthough you are the owner on record of a house in our district boundaries, your license plate recognition shows that is not the place where you reside.\u201d   <\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But that\u2019s obviously not true. Sanchez says the only reason plate reader data would have shown her car as \u201cstaying\u201d in Chicago was because she lent it to a relative during that time period. The school insists this data is enough to overturn the documents she\u2019s provided because\u2026 well, it doesn\u2019t really say. It just claims it \u201crelies\u201d on this information gathering to determine residency for students. <\/p>\n

All of this can be traced back to Thompson Reuters, which apparently has branched out into the AI-assisted, ALPR-enabled business of denying enrollment to students based on assumptions made by its software. <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what little there is of additional information, as obtained by The Register<\/a> while reporting on this case:<\/p>\n

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Thomson Reuters Clear, which more broadly is an AI-assisted records investigation tool, has a page<\/a> dedicated to its application for school districts. It sells Clear as a tool for residency verification, claiming that it can \u201cautomate\u201d such tasks with \u201cenhanced reliability,\u201d and can take care of them \u201cin minutes, not months.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

One of the particular things the Clear page notes is its ability to access license plate data \u201cand develop pattern of life information\u201d that helps identify whether those who are claiming they\u2019re residents for the sake of getting a kid enrolled in school are lying or not. <\/em><\/p>\n

Thomson Reuters does not specify where it gets its license plate reader data and did not respond to questions.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

We\u2019ll get to the highlighted sentence in a moment, but let\u2019s just take a beat and consider how creepy and weird this Thomson Reuters promotional pitch<\/a> is: <\/p>\n

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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The text reads:<\/p>\n

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Gain deeper insights into mismatched data to support meaningful conversations with families and ensure students are where they need to be. Identify where cars have been seen to establish pattern of life information.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

No one expects a law enforcement agency to do this (at least without a warrant or reasonable suspicion), much less a school district. Government agencies shouldn\u2019t have unfettered access to \u201cpattern of life\u201d information just because<\/em>. It\u2019s not like the people being surveilled here are engaged in criminal activity. They\u2019re just trying to make sure their kids receive an education. And while there will always be people who game the system to get their kids into better schools, that\u2019s hardly justification for subjecting every enrolling student\u2019s family to expansive surveillance-enabled background checks. <\/p>\n

And while Thomson Reuters (and the district itself) has refused to comment on the source of its plate reader data, it can safely be assumed that it\u2019s Flock Safety<\/a>. Flock Safety has never<\/em> shown any<\/em> concern about who accesses<\/a> the data it compiles, much less why they choose to do it. Flock is swiftly becoming the leading provider of ALPR cameras and given its complete lack of internal or external oversight, it\u2019s more than likely the case that its feeding this data to third parties like Thomson Reuters that are willing to pay a premium for data that simply can\u2019t be had elsewhere. <\/p>\n

We\u2019re not catching criminals with this tech. Sure, it may happen now and then. But the real value is repeated resale of \u201cpattern of life\u201d data to whoever is willing to purchase it. That\u2019s a massive problem that\u2019s only going to get worse\u2026 full stop. <\/p>\n

Filed Under: alpr<\/a>, chicago<\/a>, license plate readers<\/a>, surveillance<\/a>, wtaf<\/a>
Companies: flock<\/a>, flock safety<\/a>, thomson reuters<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/a><\/strong> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… off concerns about surveillance tech<\/span>, please come get your … the immediate beneficiaries of this tech<\/span>: law enforcement agencies that … school because of surveillance tech<\/span>. In one recent case, … made by its surveillance tech<\/span> partner, rather than documents …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-134693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134693\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}