Did you not read the article? It says if they notice a car with reported stolen plates or no plates drive up to the Stanford Shopping Center, they can dispatch police to deal with it right then and there. If they get there quickly enough they would hopefully stop the theft before it occurs or stop them from getting away.

Stanford Shopping Center has an Apple Store which has had problems with theft in the past.

They could avoid the readers, true, but they might not even realize they need to. It’ll definitely help some percent of the time.