You're confusing 'seeing a license plate' with 'querying restricted databases'.

Taking a photo is legal. Running plates through law-enforcement/ALPR systems is not, and auto body shops don't have that access.

Real-time identification != observation - it implies unauthorized data access.

If that was what you meant, you should have said that. Do you have any actual evidence this is happening, or are you just confusing possibility with probability?
I don't buy the claim that it's happening, but they were pretty clearly talking about the lookups, not the photos. They started off by mentioning "insiders".