The Register article:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/30/anpr_legality_debate/
Hidden ANPR cameras are essentially covert surveillance. But what constitutes visible and fair warning?
All this expense just to watch us doing nothing wrong 
Big brother isnt coming… its already here, just being tweaked to take advantage of further R&D
Because of the minority and extremists the rest of the normal law abiding citizens have to put up with all this crap mainly for a couple of excuses er… I mean reasons;
1- Terrorism
!!
2- Revenue
Government will Milk us dry with stealth taxes!!
Just my opinion
This technology is also commonly used at a lot of automated Car parks now Just look out for the little bollards in front of you somewhere hiding a camera.
You will also be giving a nice mug shot to the pin hole camera in the box while collecting/giving your ticket from the entry/exit machines.
Mmm… If I can read your number plates, track the vehicle movements, time of day in/out etc. I can charge more money at peak times…
3- Commercialism
Ah!! More revenue!
Is that aimed at me, opponents of the scheme in general or just your opinion? I actually didn’t state a point of view…
But since you said it, that’s a common response from people that more libertian viewpoints will see as simply justifying an errosion of civil liberties. If I don’t have anything to hide, am I still obligated to show you? Besides, won’t the thieves simply switch the number plates, sell the bike abroad or break it up? They sure as hell have something to hide, think a camera will stop them? They don’t stop people, masks or no, robbing banks!
At the end of the day, everyone has their hand in your pocket. If you haven’t paid for a new bike in “pence per mile” costs, the tea-leafs will 'ave it off you anyway. Now if money we already paid was being spent on stopping the inky-fingered so-and-so’s, people wouldn’t be so annoyed at such schemes. Where is our road tax going, if they need this scheme to fund stuff?
I never thought I’d hear you say the first line, the second is just badly thought out what with non-vehicle mounted ANPR reading from the front.
All our cars are fitted with ANPR…
they read from the front and rear and ,of course, it’s mobile.
they only tell us the following about vehicles:
-
It’s Stolen
-
it’s used by a drink driver
-
It’s used by a disqualified driver
-
it’s uninsured
-
It’s untaxed
-
It’s used in crime.
otherwise it tells us nothing more.
“All our cars are fitted with ANPR”
Whose cars are these again?
ANPR tells someone where you are when they see you, where you are at the next point they see you, how far you travelled and how quickly you did it, as well as some of the things you mention there porkscratchin.
How can a camera tell if you’re over the blood alcohol limit? It only knows a stolen car if it’s been reported. No one currently knows if I’m insured unless I produce my documents at a police station (good old insurance database eh?). There are plenty of untaxed, disqualified drivers on the road - how exactly is ANPR going to stop that? Not to mention cloned plates.
Oh, and someone voted the topic 1 star… lmfao, get a life, do you really think I care? What that says to people is “don’t read this piece of information / link because I disagree and the internet isn’t about information, it’s about agreeing with my point of view or f*ing off and dying”. Jackass.
There, I’ve just voted it 5 stars, how utterly pointless.
Thames Valley police TrafPol vehicles are the cars i refer to.
Now, to answer your statement:
ANPR in itself does NOT measure your speed.
you are confusing it with SPECS which uses a similar device.
When you get nicked for disqual driving or drink driving the vehicle you drive at the time is recorded and therefore can be entered onto ANPR so if that offender drives again in that car we’ll know it when he goes through ANPR…it doesn’t read blood alcohol level
people clone plates foe a reason, to avoid or delay detection.
most cloning involves swiping plates off a similar vehicle.
Do you honestly think no-one reports a set of nicked plates?
and when it’s reported, yup, it goes on the ANPR.
insurance…if your car ain’t insured it’ll be detected on ANPR and you’ll be stopped…the days of the producer are well on the way out, you’ll have to convince the officer your insured on the spot, or he’ll have your pride and joy off you…under sec 165 RTA…
ANPR is normally accompanied by ‘stopping officers’ (6 bikes and a couple of cars) if you set off ANPR it’s UP to you to prove your legal…
Simple, really.
“you’ll have to convince the officer your insured on the spot, or he’ll have your pride and joy off you…under sec 165 RTA…”
And that’s the problem. That officer has a computer system behind him and the whole scenario depends on the accuracy of the data, because people tend to trust computer data whether it’s correct or not. “Computer says no!”
I work in IT, we have a number of government departments as clients, and know what a shambles their systems can be (Oh, and the Met!). I wouldn’t trust the system enough to rely on it in a situation like that, even if the data’s just out of date you could lose your P&J even though you have in fact done nothing wrong. Burden of proof must be on the officer, and unless the accuracy of the data can be guaranteed 100%, which it can’t, that proof can’t be upheld.
Guilty until proven innocent?
(Nice avatar by the way, PS)
you’ll have to convince the officer your insured on the spot, or he’ll have your pride and joy off you…under sec 165 RTA
And thats where problems can arise. On that Traffic Police programme on BBC1 a few weeks ago they stopped a woman whose car flashed up on ANPR as no insurance.
She was adament that she was insured so plod phoned the insurance co. Reply came back as no insurance.
So he let her go into her house to produce her insurance cert.
She got it and it looked cosha.
So plod again calls the ins. co and tells em about this cert.
Reply comes back: Oh yeah, she is insured, sorry, we just havent updated our systems yet.
So this poor woman nearly had her motor taken away, as the copper didnt believe her and threatened her with its removal several times.
She was very lucky.
However, I am pro ANPR. It just needs ALL agencies to manage their side of the business properly to work.
That may be all that it tells YOU but that isn’t all that it does now is it?
This was the politest response I could come up with.
Can you come up with an unpolite one so i can understand what you mean?
Understand what your saying there…and in fairness your right on the databases…
BUT
it’s not just the database we use…that arouses suspicion initially then we do the usual checks such as contact insurers direct etc…
The vehicles that are usually taken are people that are ‘borrowing’ cars, people that admit to no insurance and people that also have a secondary offence such as no tax or no mot…without one normally means without another…
Ultimately, it is an offence not to carry your documents with you.
therefore, an officer can take your P&J if there is no record of ins held and you can’t produce your ins cert…onus is on the driver, not us.
(but , in reality it’s the crims we are genuinely after)
Well I could but I’m a little calmer now.
The information from ANPR is stored now for two years. This also includes locations and times so peoples movements can be cross referenced with static systems. Why the police feel the need to know where my bikes been and store the information for 2 years I’m not sure.
ANPR is also used for the flag system so although YOU may not have full access (which you would appear to at least have partial) this system it is in use by Special branch in the MET I am led to believe by an ex-officer.
A mate of mine was stopped in his car for not having insurance. He did and explained to the officer.
Officer gave him a producer.
Mate went to Police station and produced his documents showing certificate of insurance, MOT and Tax, but still the officer in the station said there’d be a court summons and my mate is awaiting the letter 
The system may be set up for the crims, but you can bet innocent people are gonna suffer.
I agree with the previous post, problems arise when the accuracy of computer data is taken as standard and no further analysis of evidence takes place. A bit like the over reliance on DNA testing.
You are talking about a completely different system than the one we use.
It doesn’t have a clue where the vehicle activation is made as in location, it doesn’t identify an individual…
The instance where the person produced documents and then reported??!!
eh??
you CANNOT get a producer for Tax.
You 100% sure about that, or is it 2nd/3rd hand?
If it’s a lawful document, then it’s just that.
If they were reported for any other offence i can only assume late production or it was a dodgy certificate…
find out what happened exactly…
Er mate…I wrote insurance 
I’m not having a go because you’re a copper…In my experience there are few decent ones but you seem to be one of them.
Afro,
I know your not having a pop mate!!
i was thrown because you said:
“Mate went to Police station and produced his documents showing certificate of insurance, MOT and Tax”
Yeahhhhh! CRUSH those uninsured vehicles… EVERY TIME!!!
Yeah because dvla and police records are always so accurate and no on this site has ever driven wothout insurance.
I agree with all sides here really.
I’m a huge fan of ANPR as it is something that is used by my unit on a regular basis and we have managed to stop and nick some right horrible sods thanks to it.
But I’m also very wary of who has access to information, how that information is kept/stored and how it is ‘policed’.
Very emotive subject this, and it is one I can see from both sides but having had the pleasure of using it to nick people for a whole load of offences from kidnap through to murder I’ll remain a fan - though a wary one.