In the tradition of Dragnet, Get Smart and the Naked Gun movies, cops in strange disguises can be quite funny.
But if you’re living in Philadelphia, there’s a new super-sneaky trick up the city PD’s sleeve – and it’s not funny at all.
Matt Blaze, a local university computer science prof tweeted a photo of a van that was displaying a low-key Philadelphia PD logo and a Google Maps window.
WTF? Pennsylvania State Police license plate reader SUV camouflaged as Google Street View vehicle. pic.twitter.com/0z4yo2rVoR
— matt blaze (@mattblaze) May 11, 2016
We’ve seen Google’s roving Street View machines capture everything from flying cars to topless sunbathers – but the pair of high-tech licence plate readers on its roof show that it’s not there to catch mad locals doing strange stuff.
Not surprisingly Google and the police department aren’t falling over themselves to reply to media questions – although a statement was issued to motherboard.com about an even more shocking official transgression – unauthorised placement of a decal.
“We have been informed that this unmarked vehicle belongs to the police department. However, the placing of any particular decal on the vehicle was not approved through any chain of command. With that being said, once this was brought to our attention, it was ordered that the decals be removed immediately.”
Heads will roll for that one.
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