alt Hacker NewsWrong metric-- the person caught would have almost certainly been caught absent it, making it easy to overstate the benefit.
When someone with access-- potentially LEO but the access set is much larger-- uses the data to stalk and harass someone you'll usually never know that the ALPR camera was the data source.
So its easy to overstate the contribution and understate the harm.
But if you talk a step back you can see the dramatic change being made to our world: making it impossible to go about your life without being constantly tracked, cataloged, and having your history made available to who knows who, for who knows what purpose, for who knows how long (but probably forever).
Replies
Why would they "almost certainly" have been caught otherwise?
This is a load bearing component of your argument and it seems thin.
From my perspective, you are synthesizing a harm while ignoring the clear and concrete contribution.
You're making a strong statement about the counterfactual here; how could you know? Clearance rates for most crimes in the US are abysmal, the expected outcome for most crimes is "unsolved."