New York traffic agencies are tracking motorists across the state by connecting to their toll tags mounted to their windshields, even when the drivers are no where near a toll booth.

Both the New York City Department of Transportation and Transcom, a traffic management agency, admitted that for nearly 20 years they have been using antennas to connect to E-ZPass toll tags in vehicles driving across more than 3,000 miles of public, non-toll roads, not just in New York but neighboring states as well.

“We’re being watched in ways that I think none of us would have imagined,” Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, told WBGO.org. “It’s happening without any public scrutiny, without any decision that’s consistent with checks and balances.”

A privacy advocate discovered the massive size of the program after he created a device that alerted him every time his toll tag connected to an antenna.