The recent proliferation of digital photography, online indexing, and cloud storage have combined with OCR technology (Optical Character Recognition) to create a perfect storm for privacy invasiveness in the modern era.
When you consider that the ability of tech companies to also use machine learning to understand what's in an image, the implications for privacy and civil rights are easy to see.
Users have recently been alarmed to discover that when you search for a license plate on Google images, Google's technology is so good that it can show you the car that's associated with that license plate number – assuming that it has a photo of it in its index.
The same is true for the indexing of guns when you search for a serial number online.
https://reclaimthenet.org/google-images-gun-serial-numbers-license-plates/