2020 Porsche 911Derek McNaughton / Driving Its a constant debate when taking car photos: to cover the licence plate, or not to cover? Well, today will be the day we all start covering up our licence plate in pictures; its the day we found out Google and Facebook can read them.Google and Facebook can actually scan a photograph and recognize the letters, turning the plate in the frame into a searchable alphanumeric sequence, something pointed out by, among others, Twitter user Jim Magill.This is likely a product of the image-searchable function, which can recognize similar images and patterns to help you find what youre looking for.If you want to try it for yourself, type CJJR 265 into Google images, and youll get an image of the Volkswagen Golf R we reviewed earlier this year, with that plate number on it. Youll even get similar plate numbers from other Volkswagens in VW Canadas press fleet.All around the office, weve tried it with a few of our cars, and it seems to work with Google, as well as on Facebook, and possibly other social media sites.Maybe some good could come from this tech; like if you see a car you think might be for sale by the side of the road and want to know the price, you could just Google it and see if theres a listing online somewhere. You could also run the plate of somebody who dinged your car door, or perhaps find the phone number of somebody who left their dog in a hot car. Of course, all of this stuff sounds a little creepy, too, and much more nefarious motives are not hard to imagine.At any rate, this is some Stephen-King-level eerie stuff, and wed rather not be a part of
Origin: You can now search people’s licence plates on Google, Facebook