A fashion designer on the mission to confuse Automatic License Plate Reader

Kate Rose created novel clothes with a combination of letters and numbers patterns. The clothes are designed to confuse ALPR systems. It is an unconventional method of resistance against oppressive technology system.

Would you think that fashion can be subversive and patterns can express a protest against technology that progressively interferes in life? Such time has just come.

Kate Rose, who works as a digital security professional and fashion designer, introduced her clothes-line on annual DEF CON (a hackers conference) in Las Vegas. The line is intended for both sexes and its purpose is very innovative.

Rose search the license plate readers’ database to extract number plates and then put them on clothes to imitate fake license tags. She does that to tease with surveillance cameras in the USA and misleads their algorithms.

“When an ALPR looks out into the world, it looks for something in the range of the camera that is likely to be a rectangle or a combo of letters that says it’s a license plate” – states the designer.

ALPRs systems can gather up to a thousand tables per minute.

The devices read vehicle plates and retain the data like location, date and time. Electronic Frontier Foundation believes that ALPR serves not only as a tool to track criminals by police. It is a well-developed system that surveils and control citizens even as they drive to rehab or immigration clinics.

AJ