ktlight
31st July 2011, 09:48
FYI:
A sleepy Home Counties market town has become the first in Britain to have every car passing through it tracked by police cameras.
Royston, in Hertfordshire, has had a set of police cameras installed on every road leading in and out of it, recording the numberplate of every vehicle that passes them.
The automatic number-plate recognition system will check the plates against a variety of databases, studying them for links to crimes, and insurance and tax records, and alerting police accordingly.
There were just seven incidents of vehicle crime in the town last month, and residents believe the unmarked cameras are an invasion of their privacy.
The system, due to be switched on in the next few days, also allows police to compile 'hotlists' of vehicles that they are interested in and which will be flagged up when the ANPR system
Details of the cars movements will stay on police records for two years, or five if the car is connected to a crime, the Guardian reported.
The system, which is operated regionally, has sparked fears that the data could be abused and has led to claims that it is a big brother network that the public are completely oblivious of.
Guy Herbert, general secretary from NO2ID, which campaigns against databases storing the public's details, said: 'It's very sinister and quite creepy.
'They can approach anyone they like, but there's no legal basis for them doing so.
'There's no way to regulate how they use ANPR, they are the authority on it and they have their own rules.
'So there's no way to protect people's privacy.'
Mr Herbert also takes issue with the fact that the cameras are not advertised to the motorist, so many are unaware they have even been caught on the camera.
But Inspector Andy Piper, the ANPR manager for Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, and a Royston resident himself, insists that the system will not be abused.
He told the Guardian: 'We only deal with people we're interested in stopping - that's the criminal element that comes into our county intent on committing crime, and unsafe drivers, disqualified drivers, or people driving uninsured vehicles, who we want to take off the road.'
source to read more
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2020167/Big-Brother-watching-Every-car-Royston-tracked-police.html#ixzz1Tazxdhyn
A sleepy Home Counties market town has become the first in Britain to have every car passing through it tracked by police cameras.
Royston, in Hertfordshire, has had a set of police cameras installed on every road leading in and out of it, recording the numberplate of every vehicle that passes them.
The automatic number-plate recognition system will check the plates against a variety of databases, studying them for links to crimes, and insurance and tax records, and alerting police accordingly.
There were just seven incidents of vehicle crime in the town last month, and residents believe the unmarked cameras are an invasion of their privacy.
The system, due to be switched on in the next few days, also allows police to compile 'hotlists' of vehicles that they are interested in and which will be flagged up when the ANPR system
Details of the cars movements will stay on police records for two years, or five if the car is connected to a crime, the Guardian reported.
The system, which is operated regionally, has sparked fears that the data could be abused and has led to claims that it is a big brother network that the public are completely oblivious of.
Guy Herbert, general secretary from NO2ID, which campaigns against databases storing the public's details, said: 'It's very sinister and quite creepy.
'They can approach anyone they like, but there's no legal basis for them doing so.
'There's no way to regulate how they use ANPR, they are the authority on it and they have their own rules.
'So there's no way to protect people's privacy.'
Mr Herbert also takes issue with the fact that the cameras are not advertised to the motorist, so many are unaware they have even been caught on the camera.
But Inspector Andy Piper, the ANPR manager for Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, and a Royston resident himself, insists that the system will not be abused.
He told the Guardian: 'We only deal with people we're interested in stopping - that's the criminal element that comes into our county intent on committing crime, and unsafe drivers, disqualified drivers, or people driving uninsured vehicles, who we want to take off the road.'
source to read more
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2020167/Big-Brother-watching-Every-car-Royston-tracked-police.html#ixzz1Tazxdhyn