Camera grid to log number plates

Camera grid to log number plates

news.bbc.co.uk

A national network of cameras and computers automatically logging car number plates will be in place within months, the BBC has learned.

Thousands of Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras are already operating on Britain's roads.

Police forces across England, Wales and Scotland will soon be able to share the information on one central computer.

Officers say it is a useful tool in fighting crime, but critics say the network is secretive and unregulated.

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Kent's Chief Constable, Michael Fuller, commented: "We've seen an increase of some 40% of arrests since we've been using this technology.

"I'm very confident that we're using it properly and responsibly, and that innocent people have nothing to fear from the way we use it."

A number of local councils are signing up their Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) systems to the ANPR network. As long as the cameras are technically good enough, they can be adapted to take the software.

In towns such as Bradford, Portsmouth and Luton that means greater coverage for the police and more journeys captured and recorded.

John Dean, who is co-ordinating the ANPR network for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: "It's the finest intelligence-led policing tool we've got.

"It covers so many different areas from crime reduction, crime detection to road safety and everything in between."

On a daily basis I feel like I'm becoming a prisoner on my own streets.

We are the most spied on nation in the world, we are constantly recorded, checked, asked for ID, DNA is taken and stored, this truly is a police state. I really despair of the UK right now.



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[edit on 22-5-2009 by kiwifoot]

You are becoming prisoners on your own streets! I'm so tired of all these new technologys that keep enslaving us more and more. When are people going to stand up in mass number and say no! Maybe people just need more orgainisation, because if I were to stand up to it I would be out there by myself and they would shut me down.. We need numbers and ogranisation!!

reply to post by (C2C)


The funny thing is that the organisations that stick up for the public like Liberty are just puppets for the same people who are bringing in the police state.

I will do some research and see if I can find a good civil liberties group!

I really worry, everyday there's something else in the UK!

This actually brings up a point I was going to make eventually about a situation I discovered in my small town in upstate New York USA.

I saw one of our local village police cars cruising by (staking out the bar down the street) with some strange attachments mounted on each of the rear fenders. I asked my friend who clerks at the small store across the street from my house what they were. I, being the smartass that I am, wondered if they were rockets for high speed chases.

I was completely caught off guard when he told me that they were real time cameras that record every license plate of every car that the police drive by. Parked or moving, both sides of the street. I have to admit that I just stood there dumbfounded. You have got to be kidding.

If some hick small town has this type of technology, how far does this spread? I gave up driving several years ago due to a medical condition but the fact that the police have deployed this approach really, really made me so mad that if I hadn't employed outstanding restraint, I would have stood on the corner until they drove by again and knocked the damn things off with a baseball bat.

Unbelievable, just absolutely unbelievable. I knew things were getting out of control but this just ticks me off to no end.

Originally posted by zlots331

I was completely caught off guard when he told me that they were real time cameras that record every license plate of every car that the police drive by. Parked or moving, both sides of the street. I have to admit that I just stood there dumbfounded. You have got to be kidding.

That's shocking, to make matters worse I don't suppose they advertise that either! In the UK they're proud of eroding our freedoms, I may be wrong but in the US it sounds like it's done on the QT.


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[edit on 22-5-2009 by mrwupy]

I don't know about anybody else but I'm really getting to the end of my rope with all this, can people take much more of this. I feel as if I have NO privacy left. I have nothing to hide, my vehicle is fully legal and I pay (too many) taxes but I'm being checked up on and watched everywhere I go and whatever I do. THIS MUST STOP.

Originally posted by yellowbeard
I don't know about anybody else but I'm really getting to the end of my rope with all this, can people take much more of this. I feel as if I have NO privacy left. I have nothing to hide, my vehicle is fully legal and I pay (too many) taxes but I'm being checked up on and watched everywhere I go and whatever I do. THIS MUST STOP.

There is something every day, I'm going to go back through the news for the last year and taly them up!

They have this system in some places in Ireland at the moment, connected directly with the traffic corp... as far as I know, it is still experimental.

If specific cars are wanted by the police and are picked up by the camera.. the cops are notified immediately about the whereabouts of the car and which direction it is traveling.

Not a bad system for catching crooks but to I definitely dont agree with storing the information about absolutely every car for whatever reasons.

It seems that the UK authorities really don't see a problem with tracking all their citizens.. its kind of worrying. I know its not affecting people's day to day lives over there but its pretty totalitarian none the less.

reply to post by Dermo


you're right, in essence the idea is fine, it's the storing and use of the information that the UK autorities just cannot be trusted with.

I seem to remember the DVLA selling our details to companies for use in marketing.

The DVLA makes £9 million selling drivers' details.


They just cannot be trusted!