FORT WORTH, Texas, and PALATINE, Ill. — Imagine repossessing
a vehicle and completing the recovery process for collateral in California
without license plate recognition technology. Leaders of both Digital
Recognition Network and MVTRAC are cheering this week that the scenario in the
Golden State didn't come to fruition.

DRN and MVTRAC executives welcomed the defeat of Senate Bill
1330, a measure that would have restricted the use of LPR technology in the
state, severely curbing finance companies' attempts to recover collateral as
well as law enforcement's pursuits of justice.

"We were able to position the value — and this is the key to
the whole story — of private companies like DRN who fulfill business missions
with the ability to support the auto finance industry with data and analytics
and we were able to position the use, benefit and value of that data being
applied and made available to law enforcement so law enforcement could do its
job more effectively, using the data for public good and public safety," DRN
chief executive officer Chris Metaxas explained.

"As part of this whole process and the beauty of what came
out of it all is law enforcement stood up in a very strong way, demonstrating
to the senators who would make the decisions on this bill all the cases they
solved, all of the crimes they averted, all of the public good they created
using the data that was created through private enterprise," Metaxas continued.

Metaxas also touched on two other questions the bill raised.

"The thing the legislators saw is why would we want to
restrict the use of something that's in public view that has public good that
for the law enforcement community to replicate and do it themselves would have
cost millions of dollars in taxpayer funding," he said. "Why would they go down
that path?"

Scott Jackson, CEO of MVTRAC, said he testified before
Senate committees multiple times and met with legislators on several other occasions
in California. Jackson indicated that he and his MVTRAC team used several
discussions to explain what LPR technology is and the legal standing of a
vehicle's license plate.

"The bill was hinged on the fact that a license plate was
private information. It's not," Jackson emphasized. "The license plate is
issued by the state and, in fact, when you sign your registration you sign that
legally that plate is technically the state's.

"To get past that plate, you have to abide by the Driver's
Privacy Protection Act. And they were assuming that anyone was able to look up
a plate and find the registration. That's just not true, either," Jackson
continued.

Beyond what the loss of LPR technology could do to law
enforcement, Jackson reinforced what the regulations could have done to the
auto finance community when a potential bill amendment was created that the use
of the data could last no longer than 60 days.

"We showed data that proved 60 days was unreasonable. That
minimum should be is nine months but that we had found valuable data for cold cases,
auto thefts, and repossession as far as 24 to 36 months out," Jackson
explained.

"Interestingly 31 percent of revenue from auto finance came
after 60 days. Let's just face it, if everyone enacted that same legislation,
we'd lose 31 percent of our revenue," he projected.

In DRN's efforts to sway senators' views in the state
capitol, Metaxas highlighted similar arguments about the legal standing of a
vehicle's license plate.

"You walk down the block and you see license plates every
day, but you don't know who the person is. License plate data is completely
unrestricted," Metaxas stressed. "It's been tested in front of the Supreme Court
several times. It doesn't get restricted like other things that may reveal the
identity of a person like their Social Security number, their date of birth or
their address. A license plate is merely an identifier on an asset that's in
public view all of the time.

"The perplexing thing to us was why would anyone waste
cycles of taxpayer money trying to pass legislation using scare tactics
claiming that someone who knew somebody's license plate could commit a heinous
crime, which in reality it's quite the opposite. We've proved that in what we
were doing," he went on to say.

Now that SB 1330 has been squelched in California, Metaxas
is hoping legislators in other states won't take up a similar undertaking.

"We're monitoring everything," Metaxas said. "The good news
is we adhere to very strict standards that are analogous to what other data
companies have to do for more private data. We apply those same standards to
ourselves. We believe that because of the win in California, we believe maybe
some of those fires that looked to be ignited now will be put out at this point
in time.

"Quite frankly, we were surprised that California took on
the challenge of trying to impose legislation that sought to restrict the
stringent permissible use guidelines already imposed by the federal government
and in active use by all law enforcement agencies, financial institutions, and
insurance companies. We work closely with government to ensure that standards
of use are met and diligently enforced," Metaxas went on to say.

Meanwhile over at MVTRAC, Jackson said his team has Google
Alerts "for every word you can imagine," so the LPR company can respond to
further developments.

"The key behind our success was taking immediate action and
establishing a strong rapport with the legislators in California," Jackson
said. "Overall we are very proud of what we accomplished and believe that our
success in this forum demonstrates our undying commitment and passion to all
parties directly and indirectly related to the industries that rely on our data
technology."