Managment Information Systems. W2 EXC. CH4.
Read the following Case Study and then, answer the fourquestions at the end in an essay:
Case Study:
UK Police track suspicious vehicles in real time withcameras and the License Plate Database.
Almost every city street in London is under constant videosurveillance, partly as a reaction to terrorist attacks. These closed-circuitcameras initially created tapes that could be viewed later, but the technologynow is far more capable. The cameras, now also mounted in police vehicles, areequipped with automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) capabilities, which useoptical character recognition to decipher the license plate numbers and lettersin near real time.
The cameras data is sent to the national ANPR Data Centrein north London, which also houses the Police National Computer. Each cameracan perform 100 million license plate reads per day. Each vehicles platenumber is combined with the cameras GPS location and a timestamp, so theOracle database at the data center contains detailed information about thewhereabouts of almost every vehicle.
Because the database is linked to the Police NationalComputer, police on the beat can query it to see whether a nearby vehicle isflagged for some reason. Cross-checking the license plate information againstthe crime database can turn up vehicles involved in crimes or registered towanted criminals. In one case, a police constable was killed during a robbery,and police were able to track the getaway car because its license plate wasread by the cameras. For cameras mounted on vehicles, the officer does not evenneed to send a query. An audio alert goes off when the cameras image matches aflagged license plate number, prompting the police to investigate.
Beyond criminal activity, the police database containsextensive information linked to the license plate data. For instance, a carmight show that it is registered to someone who owes parking fines or who isuninsured. The data might also show that the license plate is attached to thewrong vehicle, pointing to stolen plates.
The data are maintained for 5 years, creating a richrepository for data mining. One study found that certain cars triggered noflags but seemed to be making impossibly quick journeys from one end of town tothe other. Police discovered that car thieves were trying to outwit ANPR bycar cloning, in which the perpetrators duplicate a real license plate andattach it to a stolen car of the same make and model.
Law enforcement agencies see the license plate database, thecameras that feed it, and its integration with police data as a revolutionaryadvance, even though there are still gaps in coverage and the technology itselfis not perfect. For example, rain, fog, and snow can interfere, and the plateitself might be blurred by mud. The plates themselves vary quite a bit, withdifferent colors, fonts, and background images. Despite the drawbacks, policedepartments in the United States and other countries are rapidly adopting thesystem, buying camera-equipped cars, and developing smartphone access todatabases.
Privacy advocates, however, are concerned about the mountingpower of integrated databases and surveillance technologies to scrutinize humanbehavior. One judge remarked, A person who knows all of anothers travels candeduce whether he is a weekly churchgoer, a heavy drinker, a regular at thegym, an unfaithful husband, an out-patient receiving medical treatment, or anassociate of a particular individual or political group. Lawmakers aretightening regulations to provide better protections for citizens in an attemptto balance privacy concerns against the enormous value these databases offer tolaw enforcement.
Questions to answer:
-Describe the manner in which data elements are linked across databases.
-What technical and physical challenges does thisinformation system face?
-What human capital capabilities for law enforcement arenecessary to make the database more effective?
-What are the relevant considerations to balance lawenforcements ability to investigate versus the citizens need for privacy?
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