Tech’s Next Takeover: Your License Plate

Startups are trying to disrupt the vanity plate, raising new questions about identity and security

Foster City, CA — May 30, 2018: A digital license plate (L) made by Bay Area company Reviver Auto, part of a pilot project with the state Department of Motor Vehicles, is displayed on a car at Reviver Auto headquarters. Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty

There’s a lady in my apartment building whose license plate says EET CAKE. Every time I see it, I smile — who wouldn’t? But I got to thinking about why she’d chosen it. I’d always associated vanity plates with a certain type of…