Ironic, coming from someone blatantly ignoring the reality of things like retention policies.
Scenario B reduces to "you were never seen or followed" if no one has a reason to search for you within the retention window.
Scenario A requires intent. Scenario B only reduces to Scenario A when that intent exists. When it does not, Scenario B is essentially a noop, and has 0 actual impact on you
Scenario B requires intent ANY TIME. Someone in the system can decide they want to track me RETROACTIVELY and do it even more effectively than if they had planned in advance. With malicious intent, they can find or fabricate charges retroactively.
Yes, it is only potential, until it is actualized. Potential energy is still energy, and it is still different from not having potential energy in place.
This is why things like retention policies exist, though? Retroactively being able to query ALPR data is massively impactful to the ability to prosecute criminal wrongdoing, especially when a crime can be tied to a vehicle (such as theft of a vehicle). That utility significantly degrades with time, however!
Banning ALPRs outright is a strictly inferior solution, when compared to putting strict limits on their data retention.
This also inherently limits their potential for misuse, which seems to be your primary concern here?
Ironic, coming from someone blatantly ignoring the reality of things like retention policies.
Scenario B reduces to "you were never seen or followed" if no one has a reason to search for you within the retention window.
Scenario A requires intent. Scenario B only reduces to Scenario A when that intent exists. When it does not, Scenario B is essentially a noop, and has 0 actual impact on you