Via Bruce Schneier I read an article from the BBC about the growth of car cloning in the UK. This is basically when someone mimics the number plate of another car to avoid being fined for speeding or avoiding the congestion charges.
What struck me was the interesting part of the story
Tony Bullock’s car was cloned even though his plates were not physically stolen, and he was threatened with prosecution after “his” car was repeatedly caught speeding in Leicester.
He said: “It was horrendous. You are guilty until you can prove you’re not. It’s the first time that I’ve thought that English law is on its head.”
Here is the problem. Technology does not lie and unfortunately, we tend to believe, that technology is infallible.
The problem is that the technology in question does not take into account that the license plate may be cloned and therefore the socio-technical system (i.e. the stakeholders involved in the system) need to be aware that the technology may create false positives.
Unfortunately in this case an unfair burden of proof is placed on the clone victim to prove that neither she/he nor her/his car were involved in the illegal activities.
Naturally the most powerful actors in this scenario is the legal system which for some reason prefers to believe in the convenient fiction that the technology is correct.