New Roadside Camera to Tackle Abusive Car-Share Lane Drivers

A new roadside camera that can estimate how many travellers are inside a car by measuring human fluids has received a mixed reception.

The device has been developed in a bid to combat abuse of car-sharing lanes, with sneaky drivers attaching photographs to their windows and positioning mannequins in passenger seats in an attempt to foil conventional detection.

The technology, developed by Loughborough University, is being trialled in car-sharing lanes in Leeds, so its accuracy remains to be seen, however other councils have taken an interest in installing the cameras.

Motoring organisations question the effectiveness of car-sharing lanes, and argue the cameras are a further intrusion on private lives.

But cameras to measure bodily fluids? The Orwellian technology, if not laughable, reeks of privacy invasion, and is surely riddled with inaccuracies. How does the system take into account variations of weight and size, for instance the difference between a twenty-stone lorry driver, and a six-month old child?

I have to digress and speculate as to whether my little Jack Russell terrier, Charley, would count as a passenger under the watchful gaze of the new cameras!

Related Number Plates:

There's a spy in there!

They want blood!

Or are they just prying?

Number Plates, Street View, and Privacy Issues

In the news this morning, fresh fears over privacy have been raised, but by two very separate incidents.

The first is a clamp down on car tax dodgers through Automatic Number Plate Recognition usage, in Wiltshire.

The second concerns ubiquitous search engine Google, which is changing its Street View privacy policy to ensure that imagery obscures faces and car number plates.

What is Street View? It’s Google’s new and fancy virtual street mapping tool that lets you virtually stroll the streets of the US as realistically as if you were there in the flesh.

It was only this very weekend that I was putting forward some concerns over Street View to NumberPlateGuy – as he was deftly demonstrating this new wonder of Internet technology – "what about people’s faces, and what about number plates!"

But Google didn’t reconsider their position on displaying faces and number plates off their own steam – the changes to Street View’s policy came about as a public reaction to concerns over privacy.

Anyhow, the technology has yet to be made available to the UK so we needn’t worry about Googler’s being able to view inside our houses, or peek at our number plates, just yet.

The person on the street might be concerned about having their number plate beamed out to millions of Google users, but if you owned private registration plates like L3 00K and P3 EKK, maybe you’d want to get some attention!

Motorcyclists Fearful Over Number Plate Chipping

Coinciding with the recent increase in the use of Automatic Number Plate Recognition systems, the DVLA are in the news again today for privacy related issues – and this time the fearful are solely motorcyclists.

Bikers quite rightly feel their privacy is just a little threatened by the recent consultations taking place between the DVLA and number plate manufacturers.

For the two are clashing heads over fitting Electronic Vehicle Identification (EVI) chips to motorcycles.

And it’s no wonder that motorcyclists are concerned: fitting EVI chips would potentially allow Police to monitor and track a motorbike’s every move.

There are also longer-term implications: if the chips are installed at manufacturer level, what choice is there for the motorcyclist?

Discussions raised on the MCN web site point to a general feeling of victimisation – that the DVLA are simply using motorcyclists as a minority case to prove their stance on security. The DVLA however are keen to stress that the consultation isn’t an official consultation.

Whatever happens, this news is bound to cause more uncertainty and anger amongst motorcyclists. Maybe these plates would suit them?

Spyin’
Watched
Hawk

Go EA57, DVLA Number Plate Censors!

DVLA are causing a scandal again with their latest manoeuvre – censoring of the new 57 plates.

I hear cries of "what’s in a number?" - when it comes to value and variety; surely 57’s got the flavour? OK, well maybe people don’t want to report their fondness for national gastronomic favourite, Heinz, in their personalised number plate. But just what is so strong about 57, DVLA?

Well, the strength of the combo lies in that it can be used to spell ST and SY. And how strong these words are. Take the popular game, Scrabble, where, due to their ability to make numerous words, S and T score but 1, and Y earns players’ 4 points; they're strong, all right.

Admittedly, a couple of the plates that have been pulled by the Government agency do have a certain stigma attached: BA57 ARD (bastard) and TE57 CLE (testicle) are mildly offensive to anybody; EC57 ASY (ecstasy), MY57 ASH (my stash) and H057 AGE (hostage) are what could be considered touchy.

But what happened to cutting loose and allowing just a little bit of numeric horseplay?

Also ripped from the reg list was EA57 GAL (easy gal), which could have been taken with some light humour. Given the DVLA’s track record for smut, I’m sure with this plate – they ought to have gone easy, themselves.

Looking for some terribly naughty 57 number plates?
LO57 BET (lost bet)
EX57 ASY (ecstasy)
FA57 LAY (fast lay)
FA57 LUV (fast love)
HA57 NOB (you decide)

Big Brother Tactics Using Number Plates

Locals in Somerset are stunned today following the upgrade of their CCTV cameras to a constantly monitored system which stores details of cars that pass through, and forwards the details to government agencies.

Weston Town Hall's investment in cutting edge equipment has promised to track residents' every move using sophisticated Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology, along with additional monitors at their CCTV headquarters, and a 42-inch plasma screen.

ANPR is a police initiative that is based on the premise that criminals need a car in order to conduct criminal activity. Every number plate that passes through an ANPR camera is scanned, logged, and referenced to a national database of registration plates and vehicles. The car registration is fed to various sources, including the Police National Computer, Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and insurance databases.

Previous schemes throughout the country have seen arrest figures soar - Thames Valley Police said arrests rose nine times when they installed the system.

But what about law abiding citizens who fear for their privacy through the use of such systems? What is the knock on effect of such a tightly controlled system?

In order to avoid surveillance or penalty charges, there has been an upsurge in car ringing and cloning, which we covered in an earlier news article, particularly in London.

The criminal need not worry if he is logged using someone else's registration, and again the good guy loses.

Reports from a Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) trial showed that ANPR had an error rate of up to 40%, opening the door to the incorrect pointing of fingers towards innocent drivers.

But maybe this is a little serious – we do after all live in a democracy where we have the right to choose and where if we stick to the rules we have nothing to fear right?

So most of us have nothing to fear. But the very thought of misidentification using the system is fit to induce fear of 1984-esque proportions here in the UK, where every move is watched and we see the country nose-dive into an automated justice system.

Oh, you can also read NumberPlateGuy's view on this, in an earlier post.

Number Plate Recognition

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