DashStar

Privacy

DashStar is built to find a few cars named in public alerts, not to keep track of everyone else.

This describes how DashStar is designed to work. It is a research prototype, and there is no live network yet.

What leaves the device

Only a possible match

When a plate and the vehicle description both match an active public alert, the device sends a match event for review. It stays unconfirmed until a reviewer checks it. As designed, this is what leaves the car:

  • A cropped image: 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.
  • The location and time of the sighting. Every match event carries them, because a sighting is useless without them. They go to the authorities only after the MOAT Safety desk confirms the match.

No video leaves the device. Nothing else ever carries a location. When there is no match, nothing about your drive leaves the car.

What never leaves

  • Plates that match nothing.
  • Video of any kind. Even a match sends only a cropped image.
  • A location trail. There is no record of where you, or anyone else, drove. Only a match carries a location.
  • Footage for training, unless you opt in separately.

The exact list of fields in a match event, and any device health check-in, will be published here before a pilot starts.

You give consent once, when you set DashStar up. You can take it back at any time.

When you opt in, you acknowledge that every match event from your camera carries the location and time of the sighting. Nothing else ever carries a location.

Match notifications are a separate choice too. By default, the driver hears only "do not follow". Drivers who opt in can also see notifications marked unconfirmed, with the number to call. Drivers never follow or engage.

Training capture is a separate choice. It is off unless you turn it on.

Who sees a match

A MOAT Safety desk reviewer, who sees the cropped image and the location and time of the sighting. During the pilot, that reviewer will be James Isaac Kay, founder of MOAT Safety. Vetted volunteer reviewers may assist, but they see the cropped image only, never the location or call details. If the desk confirms a match, it calls the non-emergency number for the alert's area, or the hotline named in the alert, and only then passes on the location and time. Nothing is sold, and nothing is sent to police systems.

The thesis research data

The research prototype has recorded footage during development. That footage is James Isaac Kay's own research dataset for their thesis. It is separate from DashStar the product.

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Privacy questions: dashstar@moatsafety.com.