I've just posted a news article at National Numbers which details the fact that the police will be wheeling out a number of automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) tools in the near future, and all the info they capture on it will be stored for up to 2 years.
To be honest, as a law abiding individual, I'm not too worried about that. But what I can't really see is the point of it? Sure, I can see how being able to have a robot scan passing cars, check if they're taxed/insured/owned by a mass murderer on the run is very handy. Much quicker than PC Plod cross-referencing his memory for a vague recollection of some similar info. That'll free the coppers up to do the high speed chasing when the robot reports the info to them. You know, the fun bit of their job.
Fine. All well and good. But surely if you're being chased by the bobbies, and they've got a description of your vehicle, the last thing you're gonna do is drive around in it? Not all criminals are that stupid (some are). They'll just pinch some plates off an innocents car and pass themselves off as them. Indeed, theft of number plates has skyrocketted since the introduction of these ANPR systems. Especially in London, where the congestion charge is in effect. Cheaper to pinch your neighbours plates than pay for access to the city. (PLUG : Buy yourself a set of personalised reg! If your number plate is REALLY unique, nobody will pinch it! It's too much of a give away!)
Keeping the data captured by the ANPR system on file could, potentially, allow a big brother style of record to be built up that'll show exactly where you are/were in the country at specific times, and what your driving habits are. Well, that's not so bad either. It wasn't that long ago that it was being suggested all vehicles will be GPS tagged so we'd pay a road tax based on mileage and what roads we use rather than a set road tax. Does which roads you drive down give away that much information about you? I know if I was tracked it'd probably reveal where I live, where I work, where I get my petrol and that I sometimes go to Tescos to do my shopping (that'd have to be an assumption - I don't drive my car up and down the aisles).
But 2 years worth of data? I'd expect a few months, it'd help with, say, a missing persons case. Where were they last spotted? Slap in the vehicle reg and our robot friends will tell us where they were last seen driving to. And can you imagine how much storage space it'd require to keep that info handy and accessible? The DVLA struggle now to keep their records in order - and that's just one record of each vehicle. Imagine the state those records would be in if there was multiple info for each vehicle covering each time the reg cropped up on a ANPR for 2 whole years. Chaos.
Still, I'm sure the police have thought it through. I'm sure some IT company will stick in a tender for the job of sorting it and cock it up at the tax payers expense. Can anybody shed any light on why it might be an idea to retain this kind of info for such a long period of time? Am I missing something?
RELATED LINKS
http://www.spy.org.uk/spyblog/2005/11/anpr_automatic_number_plate_re.html
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