Why cover the license plate in for sale ads?

[Newsguy]

Originally Posted by thstone

It's not too hard to find the address where the car is registered using a plate number. In many states, car registration/traffic citations/lawsuits/insurance claims/etc are public. Websites crawl these databases and then sell the search results.

I work in TV news, and trust me, if we could get that info easily, we would. But I haven't lived in a state yet (and I've worked from the East coast to the Rockies) where you could get that info if you weren't a cop.
The whole thing is just silly.
As someone else noted, there's more in the metadata that's easily discovered.

[brainles71]

In Australia some of the car sale sites require you to submit a photo that contains your number plate.

[thstone]

Originally Posted by Newsguy

I work in TV news, and trust me, if we could get that info easily, we would. But I haven't lived in a state yet (and I've worked from the East coast to the Rockies) where you could get that info if you weren't a cop.
The whole thing is just silly.
As someone else noted, there's more in the metadata that's easily discovered.

I agree. You're not going to type in a license number and get an address. Its not that simple. Sorry if that was the implication.

All of those are pay sites. And not every site will have the exact info you're looking for, so you have to subscribe to several sites to get pieces of info that help on the subsequent paid searches. Do it enough times and it you eventually can find what you're looking for. Just depends on how persistent and committed you are and if you're willing to spend a good amount of money to get there. I've done it successfully several times.

As to using metadata, that only works if the photographer is a true neophyte. Anyone with any tech knowledge will know how to turn GPS off on their camera.