If the Sunday Times is to be believed , a newspaper which has proven itself to be entirely capable of misinterpreting any new technology, the latest NuLabour Police "total surveillance" fantasy involves even more spy cameras on our road network than the thousands of them which are already in place. The article (which like many of their dubvious technoligy feature articles is illustrated by an artist's impression) includes this alarming claim::
Details of any vehicle passing a camera will be stored in a database for at least two years — even if the owner has not committed an offence
This is so unacceptable as to beggar belief.
There is no, repeat, no justification for retaining the ANPR processed license plate, location, time and date records of millions of innocent motorists for two minutes, let alone 2 years !
The Sunday Times November 13, 2005Spy cameras to spot drivers’ every move
Emma Smith and Dipesh Gadher
BRITAIN’S top traffic policeman is pushing through plans to create a national network of roadside spy cameras that will be able to track the movements of motorists around the clock.
Meredydd Hughes wants the cameras to be installed every 400 yards on motorways, as well as at supermarkets, petrol stations and in town centres. They are designed to crack down on uninsured driving, road tax evasion and stolen cars, but will also monitor millions of law-abiding drivers.Several thousand cameras have gone up and fines imposed on motorists will be used to expand the network. The new cameras are harder to spot than speed cameras because they are not painted in bright colours.
Hughes, head of roads policing at the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said he planned for automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras to be erected “every 400 yards along the motorway”. In one trial, on the M42, near Birmingham, they would initially enforce variable speed limits, and then be used to tackle more serious crime.
This trial is along the stretch of the M42 near to the National Exhibition centre and Birmingham Airport exit. It is totally intimidating to have a CCTV camera alongside every other lamppost.
Do they plan to make use of the controversial National Roads Telecommunications Services Project which plans to hang a "see through your clothes"beacon from every lamppost, or do APCO envisage an entirely separate national infrastructure ? If so who is going to pay for it ?
Or, more likley, have they simply not bothered to think about and cost the detailed practical aspects of the scheme ?
“Where we install CCTV systems, we will also install ANPR,” said Hughes, the chief constable of South Yorkshire police. “There are lots of plans to use all the existing camera systems we can. The aim is to deny criminals the use of the roads.”An Acpo strategy document, seen by The Sunday Times, makes the controversial suggestion that every ANPR “intercept officer” should aim to issue at least 310 fixed-penalty notices a year.
Details of any vehicle passing a camera will be stored in a database for at least two years — even if the owner has not committed an offence
There is not even the alleged justification of the need to keep the information for payment queries of road tolls, this is simply mass surveillance, by the back door, without public consultation or debate, and without primary legislation.
We do not have a problem with ANPR technology being used against vehicle tax and insurance criminals, for tracking stolen vehicles, or even, where apparoriately authorised as intrusive or directed surveillance against serious criminal suspects, under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.
To use it for mass surveillance of the innocent is disproportionate and therefore illegal, under the Data Protection Act and the Human Rights Act.
Hughes’s model for the rest of Britain is the “complete system” around the Meadowhall shopping centre in Sheffield. “Every vehicle coming into that environment is checked on the ANPR database. Police officers monitor this in real time.”The national operation will be overseen from a new control centre in Hendon, north London, which will be able to process as many as 50m number plates a day by the end of 2006.
The Acpo strategy document describes the centre, which will open next April, as “the basis of a 24x7 national vehicle movement database”.
Officers investigating crimes will eventually be able to access the information from computers anywhere in the UK, although they will require clearance from senior managers.
We were concerned by this ACPO plan for a National ANPR Database back in March 2005. Where is the public consultation on such a fundamental extension of the surveillance state ?
If every vehicle movement is to be logged by this literally Orwellian centralised snooping system, it will also be a massively tempting target to criminals, foreign spies. terrorists, stalkers and paparazzi photographers, as it will also reveal valuable details about the movements of the police and security forces, of VIPs, the Royal Family, "celebrities", politicians etc.
It will also be ideal for anyone planning to hijack cash or valuable commercial cargos, and nuclear weapons or radioactive material.
With such valuable information being collected centrally, it will be worthwhile for evil people to try expend considerable sums of money to corrupt, or to coerce with threats, kidnap, torture etc. of the police and other staff and their families. to gain access to this system.
That is in iaddition to the sort of computer and telecommunications security violations which we have seen evidence of with the existing, localised ANPR systems.
The commercially run Trafficmaster system, is bad enough, with an ANPR camera every mile or so on the main motorways and A class roads, but this appalling plan would increase the risks listed above even more.
Each police force has at least one ANPR “intercept” team, which typically consists of a sergeant and six constables. Traditionally, they have operated further up the road from a mobile ANPR camera unit, stopping cars that are flagged up on one of the databases.An increasing number of ANPR cameras are now being installed at fixed sites. “There are ANPR cameras on every motorway in the UK — at strategic points,” said John Dean, Acpo’s national ANPR co-ordinator. “We are hoping to have a good nationwide coverage within the next 12 months.”
We have extreme worries that where these fixed site ANPR cameras are being installed by Local Councils in partnership with the police e.g. Watford, Newcastle upon Tyne etc. as this would seem to risk allowing unnappproved and unvetted people to have backdoor access to the DVLA databases and Police National Computer etc.
Another issue is who pays for this scheme ? It seems that the ineffective "Road Safety" Gatso speed cameras are to no longer be financed by the fines which they collect, because of the public perception that they are really being used as a stealth tax, rather than as a genuine safety measure.
However, the previous reports about this National ANPR strategy, imply that the ANPR systems will be partly financed by fines, which will lead to exactly the same situation.
We will try to get a confirmation of this evil plan to retain the vehicle movements of innocent road users for two years, from ACPO, and via our Member of Parliament and our local Police Authority. We urge you to do the same e.g. using WriteToThem
We also feel that this is something which the Information Commissioner and the Chief Surveillance Commissioner should be asking questions about.
What have the motoring organisations such as the RAC AA got to say about this plan ?
You ask "What have the motoring organisations such as the RAC AA got to say about this plan ?"
Probably the same as the vast majority of people who don't give a toss about this sort thing: "If you've nothing to hide then you've nothing to bother about"! This proposed system is the work of the devil himself. What is the Information Commissioner going to do about it? SOD ALL! He has no authority, and the whole scheme would be exempt from data protection legislation anyway.
Here's a prediction if this system of Beelizibub ever gets off the ground:
The original intention of a number plate was to aid identification in the event of an accident - perfectly reasonable. Now it's becoming a tracking device. Already it's used extensively to tax us (the speeding stealth tax). In short, our number plate is becoming a liability. The less scrupulous amongst us are soon going to dispense with it. Many already do so - cloned plates to beat the congestion charge, for example. That leaves the rest of us - law abiding, but tracked remorselessly. The prediction is that the instances of false number plates will go through the roof in the not too distant future; and that's a big problem for all of us. And it will be brought about by these bastards like the git in charge of ACPO who just can't get enough of this sort of thing.
The root cause; we've no written constitution or Bill of Rights.
I think we need to look deeper at the people who are pulling the strings. The world governments are just puppets on a string.The world is rushing headlong to a new world order, where christianity amd morals will become forbidden.Already, there is a move to remove all symbols and associations with christianity.
It will be replaced with the new world order, and it will herald in anarchy and horrors beyond our imagination.
The matrix is here and alive on planet earth.
There is still a chance that the Sunday Times are misinterpreting this.
We await a reply to our email to ACPO to see if they confirm or deny this 2 years data retention of innocent people's vehicle movements.
@ Jason - New World Order ? Surely the only people who are active with that kind of coherent plan, even if it is totally evil and impractical, are the likes of Al Quaeda ?
Bush & Blair do not seem to have any coherent long term plans except to cling on to power.
I admit that I've worked on ANPR systems in the past, mainly applied to logging the plates of speeding vehicles.
The main thing which irritates me is just the general lack of public debate on the use of cameras. The technology exists to track people or vehicles in all sorts of ways, but whether we really want a camera every 400 yards is a political decision and has nothing to do with road safety.
One point within the data protection act says that if an organisation holds information about you you should be able to request to see that information or have it corrected "without unreasonable delay" if it's inaccurate or out of date. I wonder how this would apply to an ANPR database?
There are lots of exemptions in the weak Data Protection Act for "national security" or for "the detection or prevention of crime".
The best way to protect this ANPR data trail of innocent people from being abused would be not to store it in the first place.
I wonder if this could be challenged under Article 8 (privacy) of the ECHR?
As for Jason, without any specific evidence but based on a plausible guess I would suspect that the vast majority of people proposing and involved in putting forward these 'measures' are Christians.
@ Robert - almost certainly.
No word back yet from ACPO to confirm or deny this dubious plan.
Sorry, maybe not to the full extent, but Jason has to be on to something. I don't think that bush and blair are trying to create a new world order, it's the heads of the civil service that have been running things in this country for longer than I have been alive and it is these sorts of people that operate un-hindered by such things as elections that are really running the world. Remember the Home Office are not elected, just their representative who reports to parliament. The senior civil servant at the Home Office has been there for the last 20 years that is why policies such as ID cards get re-hashed under the guise of both left and right wing politics.
Can't say that I think that they are trying to create anarchy though as they seem to want to control every aspect of our lives. Anybody with half a brain knows that this type of attitude will result in civil unrest but most of thse meglamaniacs cannot see it.
I hope that I don’t get arrested under some low life anti terrorist legislation and although I am not advocating it, I feel that the only way that there will be any true democracy in this country again is following a revolution.
If the bill of rights or the declaration of rights (Yes we do have one of each and it is current law) had stated that there shall be no political parties and each Member of Parliament must not be a member of any group or organisation that has other members sitting in the house, we would not be in the situation that we are in today.
Don’t forget that thanks to the Bill of Rights all on the spot fines including parking tickets are actually illegal, so is clamping and removal of vehicles.
Personally, as well as getting by using every tactic that I can think of, whenever the opportunity arrives I challenge the authorities head on. The last time they clamped my car I got £500 off them because the removed the vehicle before the 24-hour time limit. This time I am going for Malfeasance in public office aimed directly at the current Secretary of State for Transport.
Personally I use a piece of electrical tape to change one of the letters on my number plate. If I get stopped I say that somebody else must have stuck it there. It's up to the prosecution to prove mensrea (State of mind/Intent). Tip: if you are going to do this only do it on 1 plate at once, either front of back. I suggest front if you are passing a lot of specs or tuvello cameras or back for gatso's. Other than that, register a car at your address, but not in your name. That way they cannot get a prosecution.
No plans for New World Order? Er...PNAC anybody?
I think one should not look at the scenes unfolding before us with blinkered eyes. The combined move by world governments to control their citizens is a frightening thought and needs to be looked at very very seriously. Some would look down on the christian bible as being hogwash, but it does somehow see to ring true. The book of revelations, does mention the fact that people will receive a mark of the beast and will be unable to buy or sell and that those who receive the matk will follow the antichrist.
Now bear with me, before shouting me down.....
Looking at the way things are going...........its plausible that this is indeed beginning to happen.
Time will tell.
This sort of thing makes my blood boil - that the government can do this sort of thing without a vote or asking us or anything. It's my right for people to not now where I'm going if I choose!
GRRR!! off for a rant.
More information on ANPR and Data Retention:
ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) Data Retention guidance by ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers)
Data Retention and Access for innocent motorists data:
I have just been the victim of two corrupt police officers who followed me for 2.4 miles, accused me of going through a red light, and said that they forgot to put the camera on. The rules are that the camera must be recording the entire time. Lawyers warned me that the district court will never disbelieve the police. On top of this the police said in court that there is no obligation to have the camera on. I told the procurator fiscal that they had commited perjury but he said they were "expressing opinions". Basically, they can use the cameras to secure fines, but if they want to set you up, they just need to tell the court that they forgot to put the camera on. These cameras offer no protection whatsoever to the public. I now know from first hand experience that there are many innocent people convicted in this country. While we have lying bastards in the police and incompetent idiots in the court, I will frustrate any attempt to increase the use of cameras. Also, there is no way now that I will ever carry any ID card. Everyone should resist and slow up the arrival of the police state. (Can I still say this in Britain?) See the real news at www.infowars.com
@ Jim Pender - surely the policemen would only be "corrupt" if they asked you for money not to arrest you or to issue you with a penalty notice ?
Have you complained formally to their superiors and to the Independent Police Complaints Commission ?
No 10 Downing St has a website which includes petitioning the PM here is your opportunity to voice your concern.
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltax/
"Petition the Prime Minister to Scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy
The idea of tracking every vehicle at all times is sinister and wrong. Road pricing is already here with the high level of taxation on fuel. The more you travel - the more tax you pay.
It will be an unfair tax on those who live apart from families and poorer people who will not be able to afford the high monthly costs.
Please Mr Blair - forget about road pricing and concentrate on improving our roads to reduce congestion."
We need your support, tell your friends, it takes 2 minutes to do.
Ed
if you really want to beat anpr then use number plates with a non reflective backing therefore the camera cant read it then jumps to the next one simple
@ john - Not so simple. You face a fine of up to £1000 if you drive around with number plates which do not conform to the DVLA standards.
The London Congestion Charge involves manual intervention in a lot of cases, and the human operators can easily manually change the contrast and brightness of an image to read it, if the automatic number plate recognition software cannot.
There is a chance that you could get away with illuminating the the numberplate with, say, infra red LEDs, which would be invisible to the naked eye (or a film camera) but which would dazzle an ANPR video camera, crucially, without having actually tampered with a standard number plate.
If you pay your road tolls and congestion charges etc, this might be a legal way of not having the added burden of being snooped on and tracked disproportionately.
If you use such a technique for actual avoidance of paying the tax or charge, then that may well be prosecuted under the Fraud Act 2006, and the ""articles" used to assist in such a fraud, might be declared illegal to possess or make or sell or distribute,
with a penalty of perhaps up to 10 years in prison.