How DashStar works
The check happens in the car. Only a match with an official public alert ever leaves it, and a person confirms every match before any call is made.
This describes the design. DashStar is a research prototype. There is no live network yet, and no real-world match has happened.
From a passing plate to a phone call
- Read. A dashcam feeds video to a small computer in the vehicle, which finds plates and reads them.
- Check. The computer compares each plate with the active list of official public alerts it holds.
- Discard. A plate that matches nothing is thrown away within seconds. It is never saved and never sent anywhere.
- Match. A plate counts as a match only when the vehicle description agrees too. When in doubt, the answer is no match.
- Send for review. As designed, the match event carries a cropped image and the location and time of the sighting, because a sighting is useless without them. The crop shows the vehicle and its plate by default, or just the plate when the vehicle crop is too large or the vehicle is not fully in frame. Other vehicles' plates and bystanders' faces in the crop are blurred on the device. No video leaves the device, and nothing else ever carries a location.
- Review. A person at the MOAT Safety desk confirms or rejects every match before anyone is contacted. Volunteer reviewers who assist see the cropped image only, never the location or call details. A rejected match is closed with no call.
- Call. After a confirmation, the desk calls the non-emergency number for the area the alert covers, or the hotline named in the alert, and passes on the location and time of the sighting. They go to the authorities only at this step. The driver is never asked to follow or engage.
The alert list
DashStar only matches against official public alerts that include a vehicle or a plate: AMBER, Silver, Endangered Missing and similar alerts. It also covers stolen-vehicle alerts, and suspect alerts such as Blue and Yellow alerts, in the states that issue them.
Never follow. Never engage. Whatever the alert, drivers never follow, approach or engage anyone, ever. That holds for stolen-vehicle and suspect alerts too.
The full list of alert types for each state will be published only after it has been verified.
DashStar never takes private watch-lists, and it never accepts a request to look for a particular plate. No one can add a car except through an official public alert. Users, sponsors and private requests never can. Every entry comes from a public alert and expires when the alert does.
Who reviews a match
A person at the MOAT Safety desk reviews every match before anyone is contacted. During the pilot, that person will be James Isaac Kay, founder of MOAT Safety. Vetted volunteer reviewers from the public may assist, but they see only the cropped image, never the location or call details. How volunteer review will work.
The desk reviewer checks the match against the official alert itself, using the cropped image and the location and time of the sighting. No video is sent from the car. A match that does not hold up is closed, and no call is made.
Who gets called
After a confirmation, the desk calls the non-emergency number for the alert's area, or the hotline named in the alert, and gives the location and time of the sighting on that call. The location and time go to the authorities only after the desk confirms the match. DashStar does not connect to police systems, and nothing is sent to them automatically.
What the driver hears and sees
By default, the driver hears only "do not follow" and sees nothing else. Drivers may opt in to see match notifications, but only after agreeing to two things: they will not handle notifications while driving, and they will never follow or engage.
Every notification is marked unconfirmed until a reviewer has looked at it. It says Do not follow and gives the number to call.
Opting in to DashStar itself comes with one acknowledgment: every match event from your camera carries the location and time of the sighting. Nothing else ever carries a location. See privacy.
On the roadmap
An AI calling assistant that places these calls on the desk's or the driver's behalf. It is subject to legal review.