Number Plate recognition at the local tip!

I'll try and get a photo soon, unfortunatly I didn't have a camera or my phone on me at the time but....

When we went down to our town's tip (or recycling plant I think they like to be called) as you went in there was a big LED screen like what announcements scroll along on in the surgery/rail station/etc, saying 'Welcome'.

As you drive towards it it comes up with your Number Plate!
I looked properly after and they have a security camera system and one of the cameras is pointing at your car as you drive in! It's obviously got a numberplate recognition system set up on it because as every car goes in it says 'Welcome A123 ABC' (your numberplate).

Scary, if that's what''s on at the tip then god knows what's happening everywhere else. Big brother is tracking you even when you throw away your old carpet now!!

For information this is in a medium sized down in the UK.

Tips have always collect info on vehicles entering and leaving.Five years ago you had to write you company if any,home details and vehicle registration.Technology and paranoia moving and developing together.

Never eally realised that.. I guess the most interesting point is that if the local tip can afford that sort of technology, then it is likely that it is implemented into the towns CCTV network.

Hehe well if your town council is anything as "intelligent" as ours, most of your cctv cameras either have lovely views of the tops of trees, or are in such poorly lit areas that the video footage is 99% useless anyway Tax payer money well spent..

Agent Smith,

It's probably to stop scavengers making off with all that good rubbish. It belongs to the council you know. The binmen aren't even allowed to help themselves to the contents of your bin. I would have thought that would have been a perk of the job.

They have been using this technology at the california/mexico borders for years.

Oh Yeah- Big Brother is sliding into every area of our lives !

There is no escape captain !

Perhaps they want to be able to track down those who dump illegal/hazardous chemicals, WMDs, large piles of nudie magazines, etc.

Probably won't happen and is just a waste of money. Trying to make you think they are doing something to try to stop terrorism or vanadlism or pollution or illegal nudie book dumping.

Cameras are everywhere and IMO 99% are utterly useless and just put there to give the impression that the local powers are actually doing something. It's like dressing some homeless guy up as a cop and sticking him on the corner.

Big brother will likely have a camera down your toilet soon enough monitoring how much fiber is in your diet so you won't be able to take refuge there either.