I asked a friendly metermaid to "see if your plate scanner can decipher my plate" and it failed. The few paper parking citations I've had placed upon my vehicle also always seem to trace back nowhere...
This can also backfire and you will end up with all the traffic violations of other vehicles where the license plate could not be read for some reason.
Just as example, I'm one of those weirdos with the vehicle tag "No Plate" — never received anything but laughs from police officers.