An article in yesterday's Sheffield Star [1] revealed new plans by South Yorkshire police to implement Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) equipment across the county. ANPR is essentially a camera that photographs every car, connected to computer software that decodes the digital image and extracts the number plate.

The article was typically positive reflecting the Star's conservative politics. It quotes only South Yorkshire Police who naturally praise ANPR because it gives them more power. This is sold by saying how much these machines will combat car crime. No mention is made of any of the obvious problems.

The biggest gainers will be the companies that make the equipment. The first 6 ANPR sites in South Yorkshire are costing £300,000 or £50,000 per site. That's the typical cost of a small house in Sheffield. With the cost of computer and digital photographic equipment at an all time low there is no doubt some tidy profits being made.

One absurd police claim is that ANPR "will deny the criminal the use of the road due to the fear that they may get caught" [2]. Apart from ignoring the causes of crime this statement also overlooks the obvious ways around the system: either changing the number plates or simply taking a route that avoids the cameras.

Since many or even most stolen vehicles will pass throught ANPR points before they have been reported stolen the only way for the system to work appears to be if every vehicle movement is recorded, regardless of whether that number plate is connected to crime or not. So the police will be gathering information on everyone and how else they use that information will be up to them. That should be seen as a major privacy issue but in a quasi-totalitarian society privacy is relegated to second place if it gets in the way of increasing government power.

Longer term it's not hard to predict how this technology will go. The price will soon fall encouraging ANPR to be deployed everywhere. In fact the only way to avoid criminals taking routes that avoid the cameras is by fitting every route in and out of a town, neighbourhood or street, with ANPR. This is how London's congestion charge works.

Working within a society whose overriding concern is greed it might also be possible to get the public to play a part in it's own oppression. For instance neighbourhoods and streets fitted with ANPR might have reduced cost motoring insurance.

The only likely way such scenarios won't come about is if competing, more effective (oppressive) technology gets there first.

Mobile ANPR technology is already in use in South Yorkshire.



[1] Page 7, Sheffield Star, District Edition, Oct 6th.

[2] Alan Hartley, chairman of South Yorkshire Police Authority.