More than two million motorists a day could wrongly encounter penalties for Ulez or speeding because of simple ways of gaming Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras or errors with the system.
ANPR cameras are widely used to enforce road traffic regulations and are used by local councils or authorities to monitor vehicles entering or exiting certain areas.
The cameras read the number plate of a vehicle and run the information past the DVLA’s database in Swansea. If a suspected violation has been committed, the footage is then used to prosecute the vehicle’s registered owner.
It’s estimated that such cameras collect data on 75m to 80m cars a day, but that could easily reach 100 million a day by the end of the year, with the rapid deployment of more cameras.
But Professor Fraser Sampson, the outgoing Commissioner for the Retention and Use of Biometric Material, has written to Transport Secretary Mark Harper to warn him that as many as one in 15 motorists may be using anti-ANPR systems.
He said that with the rollout of Ulez and the imposition of further 20mph zones enforced by cameras relying on ANPR information, the use of such measures could increase dramatically, undermining public confidence in the traffic enforcement regime.
Presently, according to Professor Sampson, some 15,400 roads or traffic lanes are covered by the ANPR network.
A newspaper outlet reported that Professor Sampson claimed it was staggeringly simple for criminals or miscreant motorists to deceive the cameras by either cloning someone else’s number plate or by using stealth tape which is available from online retailers.
A cloned number plate could see an innocent driver facing prosecution for speeding, evading toll payments, illegally using bus lanes or ignoring Ulez or other Low Emission Zone regulations.
Professor Sampson said with a three per cent error rate, this could see significant risks of penalty notices being sent out to the wrong people.
According to the letter to the government, Professor Sampson said that taken together, these risks to ANPR threaten not only the efficacy of local policing and traffic enforcement initiatives but the integrity of a national system which has been so successful in supporting policing and law enforcement for decades.
‘With drivers able to monitor their own vehicles outside their homes using live feed images between their phone and doorbell from anywhere on the planet, expecting the police and local authorities to rely on the number plate for critical functions such as traffic management and national security is no longer a quaint anachronism; it is increasingly looking like a strategic risk in itself.’
The thing is, if people don’t fight back against Ulez, the entire country will be covered in cameras and people will have to pay per mile – it’s the Marxist’s objective.
The DVLA has been violating the Data Protection Act because they use your details for other purposes, as well as other companies that do this as well, and guess what, they get paid to give over your data.
Of course, it’s all a way of intimidating you, and it’s about authority. The everyday citizen isn’t criminally inclined, they just don’t have any other choice and it’s all about money and power, pure and simple.
Just remember that all supposedly polluting cars can still drive on the roads as long as you pay, proving it’s all about money and NOT air quality.
If you were to replace your car with a new car say made in China and had it shipped to England, the emissions to make that car would be huge. What about aeroplanes and trains, they also emit harmful fumes – could you envision an electric aeroplane?
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 