Briefs

SA Mathieson, February 15, 2007, The Guardian

More than 1.3m people have signed an online petition against road-pricing - part of the objection to it being that it would require the government to track all vehicle journeys. But police forces have been tracking motorists for a decade - and are in the process of joining up their systems nationally.

In 1997, the City of London Police introduced automatic number-plate recognition (ANPR) cameras on roads at the edge of the City. These cameras are now used by police nationwide, both in vehicles and at fixed locations. Forces use ANPR for anti-terrorism work and it is also used to enforce London's congestion charge.

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[The system] will also carry out automated data-mining, including a search for cloned vehicles: these can result in an innocent person receiving speeding fines or worse. The software will look for impossibly quick journeys: if the same plate is read in London, then 10 minutes later in Liverpool, it will be added immediately to a hotlist. "The clone will be identified even before an innocent person is targeted, we hope," says Peter Wilson, assistant national ANPR co-ordinator.

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