The Gate Arm is a Privacy Device: The Pause that Protected Us

This article was inspired by the NPA's recent position paper on ALPR policy. While I reference several of the paper's key points, the opinions and conclusions expressed here are my own.

Privacy has become one of the defining policy debates in America. Phones track us. Apps collect our data. Flock cameras are sighted regularly. Cars generate enormous amounts of information. Now, reserving and occupying a parking space has entered the discussion. Recently, the National Parking Association released a position paper urging lawmakers to preserve the parking industry's ability to use Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) as states consider new privacy legislation.

The National Parking Association (NPA) is the parking industry's national trade association, representing parking owners, operators, suppliers, and mobility professionals across the United States. Based in Washington, D.C., the organization advocates for public policy that supports the parking industry, develops professional standards and education, and serves as a unified voice on issues affecting parking, transportation, and mobility. Its current series of policy papers (go here to read) demonstrates a willingness to engage with complex issues that will shape the future of parking, from privacy and license plate recognition to electric vehicles and transportation policy. Whether you agree with every position or not, having a thoughtful, unified voice representing our industry at the national level is both necessary and encouraging.

One of these position papers, Protect Responsible Access to ALPR for the Parking Industry, encourages policymakers to ensure that legislation governing Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) does not unintentionally hinder legitimate parking operations. The paper thoughtfully outlines the operational benefits of ALPR and highlights the need for the parking industry to have a voice in ongoing privacy discussions. The white paper makes a compelling case for preserving ALPR as a tool. 

I read the paper in preparation for a TPN internal discussion about policy. At first, I agreed with the paper’s position but as we discussed the ideas as a team, I found myself disagreeing with the proposed solution of the paper. And then Clyde Wilson, our fearless leader, concisely expressed the tangled idea in my brain when he said to all of us “NPA is aware of this problem in the industry and is doing its job to take a stance and advocate for the parking industry in Washington. It’s too bad that they’ve taken the wrong stance and this idea will not improve the industry.” Clyde’s statement jolted my brain like a scratch on a record player. NPA accurately described the complexity of our need for secure data; however, the solution it presented to write policy to keep data secure fell short of the satisfactory mark.

The Trade of Equal Commodities

This past spring, I was at a high school track meet, which is a seven-hour endurance event for parents, fueled by sunshine, folding chairs, and concession-stand nachos. Between events, I wandered the row of food trucks and vendor booths, partly to stretch my legs and partly to regain feeling in places that aluminum bleachers do not support. One bright red vendor booth belonged to our local Toyota dealership. They had a giant prize wheel, and one of the prizes was a clear stadium-approved bag that I genuinely needed. I gave the wheel a spin, and to my delight, it landed on exactly the prize I wanted. It felt like the perfect little exchange: Toyota got a little brand exposure, and I got a useful bag.

But, before I could claim my prize, I was handed an iPad and asked to provide my name, address, email, phone number, and enough other personal information that I felt vulnerable. Suddenly, what had begun as a simple transaction required me to surrender far more information than the bag was worth. I thanked them, walked away empty-handed, and found myself longing for the days when a small transaction could simply... be a small transaction.

There were many decades when a parking operator needed entry time and exit time and that’s it. The customer entered the gate, parked for a time, paid, and exited anonymously. It was an exchange of a parking space for a fee, a small and simple transaction of equal commodities. Logo attraction for a spin. A parking space for $16. Simple. Small. Comfortable.

As lawmakers and industry leaders grapple with privacy concerns, like the ALPR usage discussed in the white paper, I can't help but wonder if we're answering the wrong question. Much of today's discussion asks, "How do we protect the private information we're collecting?" But perhaps the better question is, "Why do we need to collect so much private information in the first place?" 

In our pursuit of a frictionless parking experience, we removed the gate. In doing so, we replaced a simple mechanical gate arm with a far more complex responsibility: collecting, storing, securing, and ultimately defending our customers' personal information. What was once a straightforward exchange, a parking space for a parking fee, now often requires the collection of sensitive location and identity data. That shift has created an entirely new burden for parking operators, who must now invest in cybersecurity, data retention practices, privacy policies, and regulatory compliance.

To be clear, ALPR technology has valuable applications in transportation, public safety, and access control. But I wonder if our policy discussions have become too focused on protecting the data we collect instead of asking why we need to collect so much of it in the first place. Rather than writing increasingly complex rules to safeguard sensitive information, perhaps we should design parking systems that simply require less of it. Every piece of data we choose not to collect is one less piece of data that can be stolen, subpoenaed, sold, breached, hacked, or accidentally exposed. The safest data is the data we do not have to collect.

Today’s parking experiences do not always feel simple and small. It is compelling to join the throng of “frictionless” advocates who loudly say we are making an improvement in customer service if we go with a gateless option. Many gateless systems require the customer to identify themselves in ways that traditional gated parking never did. Depending on the operator, that may include a license plate, payment credentials, contact information, or a user account. The parking transaction is no longer simple, small, or an exchange of equally valued commodities. 

In a frictionless exchange, the parker gets a space for a time but pays in the fee plus invaluable private information. We’re writing policy to protect this exchange of goods when there are solutions already at hand to remove the security issues completely. Why are we creating more work to make this gateless thing work, when the better and safer solution is to do away with it completely? Our industry’s managers already provide parking spaces for a reasonable rate. They already provide customer service to the driver and a safe place for the stay. We do not have to create conditions where they also must accept a new full-time job title of custodians of sensitive information. The solution is small and simple: it’s called a gate.

Let’s talk about that highly controversial gate arm for a moment. It weighs 88 pounds and when treated well, it’ll last for more than 10 million opening and closing cycles and is rarely the weakest link in an operation. The parker drives in, pays, parks, and leaves. Recently, this little arm has been called friction, a disruption, and has been removed in this trendy rush of gateless parking.

We’ve all heard the expression “can’t see the forest for the trees.” Well, our industry can’t see privacy for all the gates. It is true that a gate-arm in the entrance lane does force the parker to pause for a few seconds, which can be annoying. However, in that pause, gates quietly and decisively protect privacy, simplify payment success, eliminate private data collection, and remove legislation risk. 

We removed the physical metal gate-arm and replaced it with a digital one. The five second pause at the exit was inconvenient but the headache, hassle, and unnecessary sacrifice of security was not an even exchange. It is time to reconsider some things. What if friction isn’t the enemy? Maybe all those gate-arms weren’t as annoying as they’d been accused. What if gates are the privacy devices that we’re suddenly missing? The industry became so enamored with gateless technology that it forgot to consider whether the gate itself solved problems beyond simply controlling access. 

For decades, the humble gate arm quietly accomplished something we rarely gave it credit for. It controlled access, facilitated payment, and then allowed customers to leave anonymously. We removed that five-second pause in the name of convenience and replaced it with a permanent responsibility to collect, secure, and defend personal location data. That's a trade worth reconsidering. Turns out, the gate is not merely a revenue-control device; it's a privacy device. Instead of creating privacy policies, let’s just put the device back!

The NPA is right to advocate for our industry as legislators wrestle with these important privacy questions. Let’s change the question we’re asking: "How do we better protect the data we collect?" might be improved by "How can we design parking systems that require us to collect less of it?" Sometimes the best way to safeguard privacy isn't with another policy. Sometimes it's with an 88-pound gate arm that quietly rises, quietly falls, and asks for nothing more than a parking fee. Maybe we've been looking at gate arms all these years as barriers to convenience... when in fact they were one of the simplest privacy technologies we've ever built.

Reference National Parking Association. Protect Responsible Access to ALPR for the Parking Industry: Position Paper. 2026. Available for members at: https://weareparking.org