Big brother is watching your car, legally

Repossessing cars is tricky because it's hard to predict where the car may be. In this article, a fleet of vehicles is described that drive around and capture massive databases of license plates and GPS locations and build a profile of cars and locations just in case they are one day going to be repossessed. An alarm goes off in the  surveillance vehicle if it's a currently wanted vehicle.

Although the same could be done with facial recognition or cell phone location histories, but privacy laws intervene there. 

Access to such databases of car license plates and their locations are available from skiptracers, Merlin data, TLO.com and lexisnexis, but these repossession scouts just work for the local tow truck company, toting around $23,000 in hidden camera equipment.

http://www.popsci.com/article/technology/scan-artist

Update: now the police are using the same technique, to track vehiclesnd keep a database:

https://youtu.be/DH7edXaZS0A


https://www.popsci.com/article/cars/car-buyers-repo-man-just-click-away/
"some lenders are protecting their investments by making sure the cars are never really out of their control. Thanks to GPS, phone apps, and ignition locking devices, lenders can remotely shut down the car of someone who's behind on payments."