UK License Plate Cameras Have "Gaps In Coverage" 283
Aguazul2 writes "UK police are sad that despite having the most comprehensive driver surveillance system of any developed country, there are still gaps in their coverage. From the article: 'The cameras automatically record plate/time/location information and send it to a central data store, which has complete nationwide records for 6 years.' Also interesting is that an unspecified 'particular driving style' can be used to evade detection by the cameras. It appears, however, that criminals are well aware of the cameras and take other routes. Big Brother technology, coming soon to a country near you!"
SCORPION STARE (Score:4, Funny)
Re:SCORPION STARE (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the "unspecified driving style" is to drive straddling 2 lanes, then the alignment of the camera is wrong. They do say it's impractical ...
Re: (Score:3)
I'll bet it's crane style.
Re: (Score:3)
I would guess that simply tailgating a big van/lorry past each camera would be sufficient to make the licence plate unreadable.
I know that this happens on some automated toll roads here in Norway...
Terje
Re: (Score:2)
Cars, vans, lorrys etc in the UK have to display their number plates on both front and rear (motorcycles only have to display them on the rear) so setting up the automatic recognition cameras to read the rear places would mostly avoid this problem. It's easy to tailgate someone, much harder to force someone to tailgate you.
However I did hear that they can't read the old style black and white number plates. Dunno if that is true but if it is then provided you are prepared to drive an old vehicle it could pro
Re: (Score:2)
Or, high intensity IR LEDs illuminating the plate, invisible to humans...
Re:SCORPION STARE (Score:5, Funny)
I think the "unspecified driving style" is to drive straddling 2 lanes, then the alignment of the camera is wrong. They do say it's impractical ...
I once saw someone do this. There was a sign saying "left-turning traffic use both lanes" and he obviously thought that it applied to individual cars, as he passed this sign he moved into the middle!
Re:SCORPION STARE (Score:5, Informative)
Urban myth - the SPECS average speed cameras are not limited to a single lane, and haven't been for a long time.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPECS_(speed_camera)#About_SPECS_cameras [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
That's one way. The other ways are to drive into a truck Mr. Bean style, and drive out as soon as you are past the cameras . The other way would be to have a chain of three or more cars tailgating each other.
Re: (Score:2)
tick tock (Score:4, Insightful)
bit by bit, freedom is chipped away in the name of safety. I know I want no part of such a society.
Re:tick tock (Score:5, Insightful)
Not even for safety. It is chipped away for an *illusion* of safety. Does anybody know anyone who feels more safe than a couple of decades ago thanks to all the modern surveillance tech? I don't.
Re:tick tock (Score:5, Funny)
Re:tick tock (Score:4, Insightful)
which is all based on the assumption that speed limits are about safety. They're not.. If traffic is smooth, then it is safe...even if it's going 80 in a 65. Best leave it be then. If traffic is rarely smooth, then the road needs to be redesigned so that it is.
Re:tick tock (Score:4, Informative)
No.
The UK government actually wanted to increase the speed limit on motorways, but was forced to concede in the end that the safety case didn't allow it. It would cause too many accidents. They initially believed that since modern cars had better safety systems and build quality than when the original limits were set, a higher speed limit would have no effect. They conducted a review, and ultimately scrapped the plans, because after looking at the evidence they knew damn well that it would cause more deaths.
Re: (Score:2)
..and you trust the relevant agencies when they have obvious conflicts of interest? All roads aren't equal you know, in some places perhaps they're correct. In most cases I'll bet the limits are lower than they need to be. It's more likely some politicrats were afraid their backers would lose ticket revenues.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Now you're just being silly. The changes to speed limits were proposed, then moved to public consultation. The review wasn't just a few guys sitting in a room trying to decide how to be stereotypically evil and selfish. The state of the motorways in this country was examined by independent groups and charities, as well as by the government.
Perhaps you are forgetting that the UK has a functioning democracy?
Re:tick tock (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps you are forgetting that the UK has a functioning democracy?
Not really, and road laws are a prime example.
If we made these laws on a democratic basis, we wouldn't have absurd situations like we have in Cambridge right now, where ironically it is the police themselves who have said there is no point in trying to enforce a reduction in speed limit to 20mph on a lot of roads at the moment because almost driver ignores them. The main people who seem to want those limits are people who live in the big, expensive houses along those roads, and a few local councillors primarily elected by such people. Our city council as a whole has a fairly poor reputation in terms of being blatantly anti-motorist, but given the tiny electorate for each councillor that means most people who use our roads don't actually get a vote on the people making the policy, we do not have a functioning democracy in this respect.
It's even worse on a national level, because this whole ANPR business seems to have been started on the quiet by the police themselves. Part of the controversy is because the whole surveillance operation had little if any oversight by elected officials at that stage and was effectively presented as a fait accompli.
Re:tick tock (Score:4, Funny)
Our council had a local referendum on the introduction of 20mph speed limits. They decided that all unfastened votes would be considered a silent "yes". They managed to create a situation where there was simultaneous widespread apathy and massive support for the proposal.
Re:tick tock (Score:4, Informative)
Every UK motorway has the hazard of fog, black ice, smoke from burning fields, snow and ice.
Not all drivers know to slow down in these conditions.
Re: (Score:3)
If traffic is rarely smooth, then the road needs to be redesigned so that it is.
Actually, the kind of average speed cameras we're talking about are mostly used in two situations in the UK: on major trunk roads that become very congested at certain times of day, and at roadworks. Redesigning such roads isn't a trivial exercise and may not be possible at all. However, in each case, traffic flows much more smoothly, and therefore both safely and efficiently, when everyone is held to roughly the same (reduced) speed until the road opens up again and normal rules can be resumed.
I'm not sure
Re:tick tock (Score:5, Informative)
This isn't just about the average speed cameras, though — these are cameras specifically to scan and log registration numbers and match them against a database of "vehicles of interest" (untaxed, seen near scenes of crime, etc).
Naturally, the data gets kept for years even if a vehicle isn't on the watch list. Just in case, like.
That's what the fuss is about.
Re:tick tock (Score:4, Interesting)
If you measure speed at only one point, people find out where the cameras are and exceed the limit between cameras then slow down dramatically as they are about to pass the speed trap. That's both dangerous and it wrecks the smooth flow of traffic.
I can tell you that these f***ing retards looking for traffic cameras wreck things. When you leave London eastwards on the A13, you will regularly find these braind ead morons who go totally bonkers behind you when you don't go enough above the speed limit for their taste, and then they pass you, notice the next speeding camera, slam the brakes and force you to brake as well, slowing down well below the speed limit.
:-)
On one fine day a managed to drive behind a police car, exactly at the speed limit just as the police car did, noticed one idiot approaching behind me much too fast, lights flashing, indicator out, and I moved into the other lane just as he reached me. He didn't _quite_ crash into the police car, but they stopped him
Re: (Score:2)
oh so we serve police officers now? It's our job to make them feel safe? I thought they were supposed to serve us? Well..the humans must be shoved. They will go down the stairs.. Space has a terrible power after all.. ..and being able to see everything is absolute power. We all know what that does..
Re: (Score:2)
oh so we serve police officers now? It's our job to make them feel safe? I thought they were supposed to serve us? Well..the humans must be shoved. They will go down the stairs.. Space has a terrible power after all.. ..and being able to see everything is absolute power. We all know what that does..
Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of interesting.
Re:tick tock (Score:5, Insightful)
whoa hold up.. No one has a right to 'feel safe.' That is a fallacy that needs to die. Feeling safe and being safe are two different things with two very different political outcomes.
The problem is that cops are treating every situation as 'dangerous' now, because of these ever more powerful tools. with the information provided by the cams, they're free to justify any sort of intent they want by washing the recorded behavior though a pile of half baked and badly interpreted psychology. With this, they can now justify targeting nearly anyone they choose. This is really bad for freedom for obvious reasons. TASERs are another example. You're welcome to respond with 'don't tase me bro', but the fact is these weapons are often misused under the guise they're 'non fatal.' Give a bully mentality a bat to whack people in the head with, tell him it's 'non fatal', and watch what happens. There's a reason the schoolyard bully type often gravitates to law enforcement.
Re:tick tock (Score:4, Insightful)
ah yes, the tyrant apologist argument. After all, demanding such freedoms will be met with open arms by government which of course loves all of its citizens. It would never put them on watch/nofly lists, label them with some kind of dirty keyword that preempts them from due process, tap their communications, or twist existing laws to justify arrests.. It would never violate the spirit of its founding documents with circular reasoning and newspeak redefinitions...
The only way to prevent tyranny is to deny what's require for one to operate.
Re: (Score:3)
The worst problem is that those lacking in logic will assume that, since safety is used as an excuse, safety must be a bad thing to strive for.
Whatever excuse is used, it must be understood that the underlying cause in this case is the accumulation of power. It is accumulation of excessive power - whether in government or corporation - which we must resist.
When any new idea is proposed anywhere, the first thing to ask must be: "Which groups benefit?" If anyone actually or potentially disproportionately bene
Re: (Score:2)
It's the removal of personal judgement that worries me. I'm no longer able to judge for myself 'is this a safe thing to do?' and suffer the consequences. Mostly because of the insurance industry's habit of suing anyone else when a claim is made, so site owners and operators have had to set standard rules for everyone, and set those rules at a low enough level so that idiots won't hurt themselves.
So we now see personal judgement and personal responsibility as a dangerous thing that must be removed from any s
Re: (Score:2)
We're starting to see rules against trolling and griefing appear, which is the next logical step.
Why is it OK to legislate against a punch in the 'nads, but not against psychological harm? In what way is a brain any less a damageable organ of the body than a testicle?
But morality cannot be enforced by laws, banning something doesn't prevent people from doing it, it just makes them criminals when they do it.
Like rape.
Re:tick tock (Score:4, Informative)
The NHS offers the opportunity for doctors, nurses, and bureaucrats to featherbed themselves in comfortable positions.
What makes you think that? In what way has the NHS created a specific potential for employees to "featherbed themselves"? Any organisation has the potential for its workers to act against the interests of the organisation, but there is nothing in the activity of the NHS per se which creates this potential.
Patients get to be legally high all the time ("oh, I don't drink any more, I just take a Xanax"),
Perhaps you have never experienced the NHS. You certainly don't get drugs just because you ask for them, and prescriptions are always issued for limited periods. Recall that there is no drug advertising in surgeries and hospitals here, and no commission paid to medical professionals for choosing particular drugs.
and some of them even get the holy grail: disability. (Not sure if there's a different term in UK. In USA, "disability" is paid by Social Security to anyone that is certified as too disabled to hold a job. For life.
We don't get that. The longest term payments you will get are via a disability living allowance - that is only for people with significant care or mobility needs and will usually involve a full assessment every ~3 years plus random checkups. Up-to-date GP, occupational therapist, consultant, etc. reports would be needed to have a reasonable chance of success. That is not intended as a replacement for work, but as a way of helping you live your life, e.g. adapting your car to accommodate having no legs.
There are out-of-work sickness allowances ("ESA") but they require re-assessment typically every 12 months. Actually, the assessments are awful, as they are based on some stupid points system and the assessment is farmed out to a private company which does a bad job and often has its decisions overturned by the judiciary - this has received a lot of UK press coverage recently. Only a small proportion of those collecting this allowance are entirely exempt from work-related activity, though. We have one of the most administratively expensive and broken systems of welfare allowances, thanks to lobbying by Unum and various other private insurance and assessment providers.
So, like I said, the most important safeguard when doing work on behalf of the people is against the corrupting influence of the private sector - the NHS was fine in this respect until the privatisations of Thatcher, and the system of allowances worked well until the privatisations of Major and Blair. Cameras everywhere are dangerous even in the absence of private corruption.
There's Munchausen syndrome, too.
That is itself a condition which can be identified and treated appropriately.
Re: (Score:2)
yeah.. how depressing..
Re: (Score:2)
I don't agree with his anti technology stance, but the concept of 'oversocialization' rings true for me.
Re:tick tock (Score:5, Interesting)
Well basically, people end up forced to disguise motives for actions taken if they don't comply with a social status quo that demands moral justifications for almost everything. In other words, one doesn't have a right to something unless it complies with a 'universal' morality. As this status quo becomes less and less compatible with basic human needs, it breeds all kinds of passive aggressive behavior as individuals attempt to get their legitimate needs filled without feeling institutionally programmed guilt or getting in to trouble with authority. Today, it's bad enough that it's almost impossible to have a truly honest discussion about anything truly important nowadays, never mind live truly satisfying lives. I think this dynamic is one of the first causes of political problems in western countries, or any country that claims a representative government. The more 'socialized' and interconnected the society, the more powerful this dynamic becomes.
His statements about 'lack of meaningful work' are also interesting. Having large numbers of people seriously unsatisfied with the daily grinds they must endure is definitely a key component of social unrest. We anesthetize ourselves with cheesy entertainment or embed ourselves in (or generate) trivial real life drama to hide from this. Sometimes we combine the two (reality tv). While most would be quick to state how hard the back breaking rural lifestyle was, 12hr work days cooped up in office buildings are not any better. They may in fact be worse. He sees technology as the enemy because of this.
As far as technology goes, I admit it enables this to happen with more efficiency, but I think the solution lies in fixing the root causes, not attacking tools. As the drug and gun wars have shown, attacking tools solves nothing.
Re: (Score:3)
Very true. Once went to Heathrow airport when the weather was extremely humid and all the trees and bushes were lush and green if not a bit overgrown like a safari park somewhere equatorial. Made the comment that I thought I was in such and such country. Look of shock and horrified faces all round.
In a rural lifestyle you may had long hours but you had good meals and short commutes.
Having to depend on an
unpredictable transportation network that changes on a monthly basis according to the pedantic whims of a
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, no. The three things that prevent accidents are:
1. situational awareness
2. driving skill
3. vehicle condition
Slowing everyone down only masks the problem, and, long term, makes people worse drivers. Idiot proofing just makes for better idiots.
Re:tick tock (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, but road design and layout is the biggest external factor. The problem is that speed limit benefits are interpreted as a slippery slope argument for the sake of lowering them to increase revenue. The lower it is, the 'safer' things are assumed to be, making the speeding 'offense' ever more egregious.. The logical conclusion is to ban driving altogether.. now everyone's safe, right?
I'm not saying there are always idiots (though that's also true), I'm saying that lowering the expected levels of performance makes better idiots.. People adapt themselves to the new normals, and the accident levels creep back up again. With modern cars, that creep levels off pretty damn close to the same level as the above-limit speeds most people travel at. 65 or 80, the accident levels for most stretches of highway are similar enough that strict enforcement of 65 is pointless. For the most part, the limits are changed along roads for no rhyme or reason unless that particular state wants to set up traps for revenue. Obviously, I'm leaving out situations where it does make some sense, like construction, though even there, the 'temporary' speed limit signs are enforced even when no workers are present and there is no other hazard. I've seen situations where these 'temporary' signs are still up a year after the work was completed, complete with two cop cars sitting around waiting to ticket 'speeders.' So while you're technically correct, the reality is that a fatal accident at 80 is most likely going to be a fatal accident at 65 in most highway situations. It's just assumed by the law that the speeding was the fault, when it it's more likely due to some other behavior causing inattention. The same thing goes with the 35-50 zones on most backroads. 'most' being the operator here. Ideally, funds from tickets should go to civil projects to redesign areas with recurrent accident problems instead of law enforcement budgets.
I'd rather have alert drivers going 80, than a bunch of cellphone yammering idiots going 60. If the real goal is safety, the best thing we can do is tear down the road mounted cell towers. Interactive communication is as distracting as intoxication.
Re: (Score:2)
and if people were more attentive and better skilled drivers, that whole curve is shifted downward radically. Inattentiveness (lack of situational awareness) has a far better correlation with accidents than speed.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is that people don't know their own limits. I read somewhere that 80% of drivers think they're better than average... they overestimate their abilities, and they don't recognize their limitations. Doesn't help that the police might actually arrest you on suspicion of drunk driving if you pull over to the side of a highway and sleep because you're not safe to drive.... :(
An alert and attentive driver who knows their vehicle's capabilities, and who is driving to the conditions is a safer driver, a
Re: (Score:2)
and if people were more attentive and better skilled drivers, that whole curve is shifted downward radically. Inattentiveness (lack of situational awareness) has a far better correlation with accidents than speed.
Sure. You should go on a training course then that teaches you safer driving.
On the other hand, people make mistakes, inevitably, and a driving style that doesn't cause mistakes to turn into accidents prevents accidents. Like not driving much faster (or much slower) than others, no abrupt lane changes, no abrupt acceleration or braking when not needed, not going straight to the fast lane when you join a motorway, leaving plenty of distance to the car in front of you, a non-aggressive driving style that d
Re: (Score:2)
If we demanded respect for the laws of physics from both drivers and pedestrians as much as we do for the rule of law, we'd have almost no accidents. I never said little residential backroads should be 65 nor did my statements imply it.
It looks like this study only takes speed into account. Well duh.. If speed is assumed as the only cause, the only answer is 0mph. Now the humans are protected and the space robots have done their jobs. The end, right?
On a road where 25 is truly justified, people will stil
Re: (Score:2)
No, but your argument was situational awareness, driving skill and vehicle condition prevents accidents - totally omitting 'reducing speed' from the list. It was the 'driving skill' point that made me post a reply to your comment as it's this kind of 'boy racer' attitude [wikipedia.org] which causes so many deaths.
Re: (Score:2)
No, but your argument was situational awareness, driving skill and vehicle condition prevents accidents - totally omitting 'reducing speed' from the list. It was the 'driving skill' point that made me post a reply to your comment as it's this kind of 'boy racer' attitude [wikipedia.org] which causes so many deaths.
In itself reducing speed doesn't prevent accidents. It reduces the damage caused when they happen, which in turn reduces fatality rates, especially in vehicle/pedestrian and vehicle/cyclist accidents.
What prevents accidents is driving to the road conditions. This means slowing down when there's visibility or traffic or traction problems which can affect your ability to see a hazard and react to it, and similarly, when there's an increased potential for hazards/pedestrian traffic (like driving in a commercia
Re: (Score:2)
The loss of freedom that comes from excessive accumulation of power? The only reason to have such surveillance systems is to use the collected information against the surveilled masses. Honest traffic safety hotspots can be monitored by individual cop cars when necessary, and if they are continually problematic, then it's time to call in the civil engineers to fix the issue. There is no need for ubiquitous surveillance to solve this problem. That's why I think it's bogus.
Not Gaps (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
There is no national plan to cover the whole road network in these cameras yet
There, fixed that for you.
Re: (Score:2)
They have a solution already (Score:2)
Remember, citizen: driving is a privilege, not a right. Just like travel, speech, and thought.
Take that Julia and Winston (Score:2, Redundant)
Yeah, because Julia and Winston are supposed to take the train, not drive.
Burden of Proof? (Score:5, Insightful)
The world is only now waking up to the dangers of 'big data', and having faceless corporations track your every move across the internet, or your purchases, or your contacts via social media. Governments quite like corporations doing this, since once the data is mined and analyzed, they can get it via court order, for free, with laws that prevent the companies from telling their customers.
What's happening with motoring is similar. Placing ANPR technology on main roads implements the whole-scale surveillance of a nation. Gone are the days of having to have a court order to tap a phone or intercept someone's postal mail. Now, the data is collected and analyzed first - essentially presumed guilt, not presumed innocence.
The linked article suggests that there are ways of defeating ANPR technology. There are perhaps two. The first is to steal the license plates of a different car. This trick has been around for years, and extensive effort has been put into supplying license plates that show clearly visible signs of this - they fracture and turn black. The other is somewhat more dangerous, which is to know in advance where all the cameras are, and then tailgate a large truck past the cameras.
In short, the police have the inclination, budget and incentive to build out a better and better tracking system until even these few gaps are gone.
A more important question, however, may be to step back and look at where the balance now lies in terms of personal freedoms versus state power. The theory of a democracy is that it provides a 'government by the people', yet I wonder how many people are comfortable with the current state of play?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
This trick has been around for years, and extensive effort has been put into supplying license plates that show clearly visible signs of this - they fracture and turn black.
A far simpler option is to make your own convincing fake. Soon possibly with a 3D printer.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The linked article suggests that there are ways of defeating ANPR technology. There are perhaps two. The first is to steal the license plates of a different car.
Didn't Watchdog do a bit last year about how easy it is to get a number plate printed? No need to steal one, just spot a car that's similar to yours, note the number, then find a number plate supplier who is suitably casual about paperwork. I thought that was the reason for fuzzing out the plates on television these days.
Why are number plates printed by private businesses anyhow? It seems like a weak point in the system.
Re: (Score:3)
The weak point exists for the reason that car dealerships claim they need to be able to print show plates for cars on show at their garages. Also, some people like custom plates, nationalists like having their countries flag on rather than the standard EU style plate for example.
It is extremely easy to get them printed, an old colleague's ex owned such a printing business and was done for working with an organised crime gang who stole luxury cars and used him to print the plates. He tried to use the excuse
Re: (Score:2)
Why are number plates printed by private businesses anyhow? It seems like a weak point in the system.
Yup, certainly is.
A few years ago a friend of mine had a minor crash and trashed the number plate on his car. This was no surprise as he was a crap driver who shouldn't have been on the road anyway (he had about 5 or 6 crashes in the same year, all low speed though).
He got pulled over for driving a car with no front number plate and the police told him to get it sorted before he drove it again so he walked to the local garage and paid them to print up a new front plate for him. Unfortunately he was not all
Re: (Score:2)
The first is to steal the license plates of a different car. This trick has been around for years, and extensive effort has been put into supplying license plates that show clearly visible signs of this - they fracture and turn black.
Is this a European thing? Our Canadian plates are about the simplest stamped steel painted white you can possibly imagine. The only "security" on them is that the letters are embossed.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
To be fair, and I don't know if it's changed, the ANPR cameras used to only log your details if your plate could be cross-referenced with another list such as a list of stolen cars, a list of uninsured/declared off the road vehicles etc. or vehicles on a specific watch-list which IIRC they do actually have to obtain a warrant to add a vehicle to. So the only time they'd log and flag is if you were actually breaking the law in the first place. Similarly many people believe speed cameras are always filming bu
Re: (Score:2)
That's still the case - if a car is stolen there's really only a narrow window of opportunity to put it on ANPR before it ends up burnt out on a canal bank somewhere. When my sister's car was stolen, the police added it to ANPR within an hour or so, but it didn't show up because it didn't pass any cameras before it was parked up (she found it about half a mile away from her house, mostly undamaged, a week later).
The "yellow vulture" average speed cameras keep track of registration numbers for about an hour
Re: (Score:2)
To be fair, and I don't know if it's changed, the ANPR cameras used to only log your details if your plate could be cross-referenced with another list such as a list of stolen cars, a list of uninsured/declared off the road vehicles etc. or vehicles on a specific watch-list which IIRC they do actually have to obtain a warrant to add a vehicle to.
Warrant? What is this warrant thing you speak of?
Oh, you mean like a search warrant that can just be issued by any police officer above the rank of inspector? Warrants in the UK are a joke since most are now just issued by the police themselves without them having to go anywhere near a judge or magistrate. If a police officer is willing to arrest you he can immediately search you and the surrounding area (including your home, car, etc) without needing a warrant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_warrant [wikipedia.org]
Th
Re: (Score:2)
"Contrary to you belief though they can can pull your car over just because it has a marker on it, they do not need any further reason."
They can do this regardless of any marker anyway and this is the same in most countries. They're allowed to do spot checks for drink driving, or to check your car is roadworthy for example, so I'm not really sure there's much to complain about here unless you want to have a debate as to whether police should ever be allowed to do such spot checks, but that's a different dis
From my own experience (Score:2)
Funny, that. And true. I was driving in England a few weeks ago, and even the simple, solar-panel fed digital speed-warning systems read your plates. Even my (foreign) plates!
Re: (Score:2)
You mean the ones that flash up your speed if you go near the limit in the place you're driving? If so then no, no they don't read your plates.
Re: (Score:3)
no sleep (Score:4, Informative)
I used to live 1km from the ANPR that was situated on the "ring of steel" near Canary Wharf in London - or, more accurately - my bedroom window was right next to the point that the cop cars would catch up with the non-taxed, non-MOT'd cars after they had cruised through. At the beginning of the month it was about 2 a night that would be stopped as police cars operated a pincer movement around the Isle of Dogs [wikipedia.org]
the slightly scary thing is that you can buy your own ANPR System [dvisystems.co.uk] off the shelf. (I know that geeks can easy create it themselves using motion and some OCR tools - but, imagine selling this to normal people!!
Re: (Score:3)
Perhaps I am a garage and want to record the number plate used with each sale in case of card fraud?
Perhaps I run a private car park that offers free parking for say two hours (imagine I am a supermarket), and be able to issue fines to those that stay longer?
I can see a whole slew of perfectly legitimate reasons why private companies might want to track number plates, and reducing that cost to them reduces the cost of the products I buy from them.
Re: (Score:3)
Funny you should mention supermarkets. After the recent Tesco debacle I wouldn't trust them to store that kind of data securely.
There might be all sorts of "perfectly legitimate" reasons for collecting this data, but there is no system in place to check that someone has such a reason when buying one of these devices and nothing in place to check that they are responsible with the data.
Re: (Score:2)
Writing a document and getting both parties to sign it is the most solid way of forming a contract (and required in many places for certain types of contract) but it isn't the only way a contract can be formed. Contracts can be formed though verbal agreement or through actions. AIUI by parking on private land with terms clearly displayed you are entering into a contract to park under those terms even if you didn't explicitly sign anything or talk to anyone.
Re: (Score:2)
the slightly scary thing is that you can buy your own ANPR System [dvisystems.co.uk] off the shelf. (I know that geeks can easy create it themselves using motion and some OCR tools - but, imagine selling this to normal people!!
That's not the scary thing. That's the only thing that is at all positive. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. And given that, the most empowering thing you can do for people is to make the same powers of observation available to everybody.
How the system works (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to work on license plate recognition about a decade ago. Typically there are problems with illumination, motion and noise. So what the systems try to do is boost illumination (often by hidden IR lights) and decrease motion related blur by taking multiple shots and integrating images and/or filtering the results. All this algorithms have some built in assumptions about the expected area of interest, scale and most likely motion. Suppose you detect license plate at some position and scale in frame N. To boost the probability of being correct, you want to check if you can find the same plate number in frame N+1 and possibly N+2. Detection is all about probability. There are some thresholds built in that on one side maximize the probability of license plate detection and on the other side minimize pollution of the database with bad results. So in short, if your license plate is dirty and your trajectory is not what the system expects (changing lanes and velocity) it's more likely the system will not store the result. If you know the specifics of the particular system, you may beat it easily, like if the system first looks for the plate frame, you can mask or offset the frame, or if you know about the exact illumination filtering procedure you may add some conflicting structured illumination.
Re: (Score:2)
Live down a muddy lane ... (Score:2)
Sorry officer but there is a big muddy puddle just outside of my house.
Re: (Score:2)
Then they may pull you over and fine you for having an unreadable license plate.
Re: (Score:2)
Except it's an offence in itself to have a non-legible number plate.
Re: (Score:3)
Then you will be pulled over and asked* to clean your license plate until it is readable...
*: You will be nicely asked to clean your license plate, they won't let you drive off until you've done that, though.
Bobby tables (Score:2)
what "particular driving style" really means (Score:3)
Or just take your front plate off (Score:2)
Which is what I've done. Only been stopped once in 5 yearsby some bored country plod , gave some BS excuse and he let me off.
Or you could ride a motorbike - they don't have front plates anyway. Presumably the police arn't interested in catching people on bikes. Perhaps crims don't use them? Oh , wait.... this isn't about catching criminals. Silly me.
Took a long time to get to "ZOMFG terrorists" (Score:2)
Whoa, where did that come from? They also claim they "contributed to more than 50,000 arrests". That's a lot of "terrorists" then: maybe we should live in permanent shivering supine unquestioning fear.
Or maybe we could just put Elbonian plates on and jabber "No speaking Englandish!" if stopped, like any halfwit career criminal could figure out.
Are muslims a race now? (Score:2)
When did this happen? Am I a member of the Christian race then? I don't look much like Jesus but hey...
Murdoch Newspapers & TV (Score:2, Interesting)
Murdoch's papers (News of the World) use to buy information from the police. They even admitted as much to Parliament inquiry as though they were above the law.
I bet they bought the logs of where famous stars and politicians went, when and how.
And if Murdoch can buy that info, how many times do you think other criminals have bought that info. Just as the vehicle registration office was selling license plate information to clamping outfits, debt collectors, pretty much anyone who wanted it, I bet the police
Drive too fast? (Score:2)
There's a radar sign near my home that displays nothing if you go, uh, significantly faster than it says you should.
So, let's have a positive experience: (Score:3)
The issue is not the technology, the issue is how it's used and by whom. This is an excellent system for reducing vehicle crime - theft, unisured drivers, unsafe vehicles on the road, etc. that cost us all a shitload of money in taxes, insurance premiums, death. They can do this as much as they like, I'm cool with that, but I want to know that that's ALL they're doing with it, and that they're not selling my data etc. etc.
People need to stop getting all antsy about the technology and concentrate their attention / concerns / questions on HOW it's used.
Careful! (Score:2)
"It appears, however, that criminals are well aware of the cameras and take other routes"
Careful, that makes anyone whose vehicle does not show up on the cameras possibly shady.... ~;-)
all the best,
drew
I know what's behind this (Score:2)
Licence Plate Capcha (Score:2)
What if you got your car a rather unique paint job that featured random strings of numbers and letters at different orientations. I wonder how well the tracking system would work, or bet yet, change the paint scheme every so often.
Re:SOUNDS ALL RIGHT TO ME !! (Score:5, Funny)
Surely you mean it sounds doubleplusgood...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's hard to believe this is the same country where someone said this:
Re: (Score:3)
What? They only use 8 bits to store the speed of the car which then crashes the system before it records the image?
Re: (Score:3)
There probably was an integer overflow during the conversion of a floating point to a fixed point number, which shut down the primary control system and the backup shortly after eachother (because they were running the same software) and sent the vehicle offcourse.
Re: (Score:2)
It's more to do with how the timing mechanism works. If you devise a speed camera to measure a "sensible" range then at some point you're going to have something that's too slow or too fast to measure accurately.
GATSO-type cameras work by taking two photographs a certain interval apart, with the speed of the car as measured by Doppler RADAR printed on the frames. To verify that the electronic measurement is accurate, the distance the car travels can be measured between the two photos because there are str
Re: (Score:2)
Another good reason to work in mph! :)
Re: (Score:2)
That would technically be a simple solution. Heck, you might as well implant a beacon on the people themselves. But from the point of view of marketing, that won't sell so well. And our dear politicians are afraid of only 1 thing: election time.
Re: (Score:2)
We had plans to do so ; for a while the documents were publicly available from the Department of Transport website (they may still be there, linked below).
They were dressed up as plans to implement "road pricing [dft.gov.uk]" - a scheme whereby you are charged a differential toll rate for driving on certain "congested" roads at peak times, which allegedly would create incentive for you to drive at different times, or via different routes, thus reducing congestion.
The implementation was to be a small black box with a GPS
Re: (Score:3)
I thought UK cameras looked at the rear plate.
(Most) speed cameras do, for some reason though ANPR cameras (including 'SPECS' ANPR speed cameras) usually look at the front, perhaps to catch a view of the driver if needed. It's common knowledge that you can 'lorry surf', meaning drive so that a high truck is between you and the cameras at the right moment; the cameras usually being mounted high above the kerb.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I do. What else should I write on an entry card? UKian? Devonite?
Re:more cameras (Score:4, Insightful)
The cameras aren't there for ordinary criminals to get caught /tinfoilhat
Re:more cameras (Score:5, Insightful)
1) steal a set of plates from another car
2) place on your car
3) enjoy driving, filling with fuel etc
4) discard plates - goto (1)
Lasts upto 24 hours before plates are reported as stolen as they generally have to check with current owner
and soon to be replaced with
1) raprep plate from same/similar make model color vehicle (I've seen a very convincing copy already)
try telling the police you weren't at the crime scene
criminals will always have the upper hand in a Big Brother/Nanny state
Re: (Score:2)
Or even find a dis-reputable company that will produce 'fake' plates for a fee/bottle of whiskey