At least 16 percent of motorists tool around without insurance, and a Michigan company says it has developed technology that allows police to easily identify and cite them.

InsureNet’s database would compile names, license plate numbers and other information about motorists and provide it to some 35,000 law agencies through a nationwide network linking local, state and federal law enforcement. Cops and traffic cameras could use the information to instantly identify uninsured motorists. InsureNet claims the system could save the insurance industry billions of dollars in fraud and generate hundreds of millions in ticket revenue. It says Chicago and Mississippi are among those that may adopt the technology.

“Until now states have had very little opportunity to determine what vehicles on the road are insured,” Rowland Day, the company’s executive VP, told Wired.com. “We have developed a system that has the ability to be effective on a national level and therefore beneficial to every state.”

All states require automobile insurance of some kind, but uninsured motorists generally aren’t caught unless they’re stopped for another offense. InsureNet would make it easier to identify them and create another use for the traffic and surveillance cameras blanketing many cities. Civil libertarians warn such a system threatens our privacy and brings us closer to a surveillance state akin to England, where there’s a camera on nearly every corner.