UK will be first to monitor every car journey

[sydude]

This is the beginning of the end of our love affair with the automobile, people..
Belfast Telegraph Home > News


UK will be first to monitor every car journey

By Steve Connor
26 December 2005

Britain is to become the first country in the world where the movements of all vehicles on the roads are recorded. A new national surveillance system will hold the records for at least two years.


Using a network of cameras that can automatically read every passing number plate, the plan is to build a huge database of vehicle movements so that the police and security services can analyse any journey a driver has made over several years.


The network will incorporate thousands of existing CCTV cameras which are being converted to read number plates automatically night and day to provide 24/7 coverage of all motorways and main roads, as well as towns, cities, ports and petrol-station forecourts.


By next March a central database installed alongside the Police National Computer in Hendon, north London, will store the details of 35 million number-plate "reads" per day. These will include time, date and precise location, with camera sites monitored by global positioning satellites.


Already there are plans to extend the database by increasing the storage period to five years and by linking thousands of additional cameras so that details of up to 100 million number plates can be fed each day into the central databank.


Senior police officers have described the surveillance network as possibly the biggest advance in the technology of crime detection and prevention since the introduction of DNA fingerprinting.


But others concerned about civil liberties will be worried that the movements of millions of law-abiding people will soon be routinely recorded and kept on a central computer database for years.


The new national data centre of vehicle movements will form the basis of a sophisticated surveillance tool that lies at the heart of an operation designed to drive criminals off the road.


In the process, the data centre will provide unrivalled opportunities to gather intelligence data on the movements and associations of organised gangs and terrorist suspects whenever they use cars, vans or motorcycles.
The scheme is being orchestrated by the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) and has the full backing of ministers who have sanctioned the spending of £24m this year on equipment.


More than 50 local authorities have signed agreements to allow the police to convert thousands of existing traffic cameras so they can read number plates automatically. The data will then be transmitted to Hendon via a secure police communications network.


Chief constables are also on the verge of brokering agreements with the Highways Agency, supermarkets and petrol station owners to incorporate their own CCTV cameras into the network. In addition to cross-checking each number plate against stolen and suspect vehicles held on the Police National Computer, the national data centre will also check whether each vehicle is lawfully licensed, insured and has a valid MoT test certificate.


"Every time you make a car journey already, you'll be on CCTV somewhere. The difference is that, in future, the car's index plates will be read as well," said Frank Whiteley, Chief Constable of Hertfordshire and chairman of the Acpo steering committee on automatic number plate recognition (ANPR).


"What the data centre should be able to tell you is where a vehicle was in the past and where it is now, whether it was or wasn't at a particular location, and the routes taken to and from those crime scenes. Particularly important are associated vehicles," Mr Whiteley said.


The term "associated vehicles" means analysing convoys of cars, vans or trucks to see who is driving alongside a vehicle that is already known to be of interest to the police. Criminals, for instance, will drive somewhere in a lawful vehicle, steal a car and then drive back in convoy to commit further crimes "You're not necessarily interested in the stolen vehicle. You're interested in what's moving with the stolen vehicle," Mr Whiteley explained.


According to a strategy document drawn up by Acpo, the national data centre in Hendon will be at the heart of a surveillance operation that should deny criminals the use of the roads.


"The intention is to create a comprehensive ANPR camera and reader infrastructure across the country to stop displacement of crime from area to area and to allow a comprehensive picture of vehicle movements to be captured," the Acpo strategy says.


"This development forms the basis of a 24/7 vehicle movement database that will revolutionise arrest, intelligence and crime investigation opportunities on a national basis," it says.



Mr Whiteley said MI5 will also use the database. "Clearly there are values for this in counter-terrorism," he said.


"The security services will use it for purposes that I frankly don't have access to. It's part of public protection. If the security services did not have access to this, we'd be negligent."

Why this revolution is only the start
The new national surveillance network for tracking car journeys, which has taken more than 25 years to develop, is only the beginning of plans to monitor the movements of all British citizens. The Home Office Scientific Development Branch in Hertfordshire is already working on ways of automatically recognising human faces by computer, which many people would see as truly introducing the prospect of Orwellian street surveillance, where our every move is recorded and stored by machines.


Although the problems of facial recognition by computer are far more formidable than for car number plates, experts believe it is only a matter of time before machines can reliably pull a face out of a crowd of moving people.


If the police and security services can show that a national surveillance operation based on recording car movements can protect the public against criminals and terrorists, there will be a strong political will to do the same with street cameras designed to monitor the flow of human traffic.


A major feature of the national surveillance centre for car numbers is the ability to trawl through records of previous sightings to build up an intelligence picture of a vehicle's precise whereabouts on the road network.
However, the Home Office and police believe that the Big Brother nature of the operation can be justified on the basis of the technology's proven ability to catch criminals. "In simple terms criminals use vehicles. If you want to commit a crime, you're going to use a vehicle," said Frank Whiteley, the Chief Constable of Hertfordshire, who leads the project. " There is nothing secretive about it and we don't want it to be secret, because we want people to feel safer, to see that they are protected."
A 13-month pilot scheme between 2003 and 2004 found the performance of the police improved dramatically when they had access automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras. Project Laser 2 involved 23 police forces using specially fitted vans with ANPR cameras linked to a police database. It led to a fivefold increase in the arrest rate for frontline officers.


But these mobile units will constitute only a tiny proportion of the many thousands of ANPR cameras that by next year will be feeding more than 35 million number plate "reads" every day into the new national data centre at Hendon, north London, the same site as the Police National Computer.


Mr Whiteley, chairman of the ANPR steering committee, said the intention eventually was to move from the "low thousands" of cameras to the " high thousands".


One camera can cover many motorway lanes. Just two ANPR devices, for instance, cover north and south movements through the 27 lanes of the Dartford crossing toll area on the Thames.


By March next year, most motorways, main roads, town centres and petrol station forecourts will be also covered. Some cameras may be disguised for covert operations but the majority will be ordinary CCTV traffic cameras converted to read number plates. "What we're trying to do as far as we can is to stitch together the existing camera network rather than install a huge number of new cameras," Mr Whiteley said.


More than 50 local authorities have already signed up to allow the police access to data gathered from their CCTV traffic cameras. Northampton, Bradford, Stoke and the City of London have had ANPR cameras in use for some time. Many smaller towns, such as St Albans, Stevenage and Watford are in the process of being wired up.


"We also talking to the commercial sector about their sites, particular garage forecourts. One of the biggest truisms about vehicles is that they have got to fill up with petrol," he explained.


Supermarkets are soon to agree a deal that will lead to all cars entering their garage forecourts having details of their number plates sent to Hendon. In return, the retailers will receive warning information about those drivers most likely to "bilk" - drive off without paying their bill.
The plan beyond March 2006 - when the national data centre goes live - is to expand the capacity of the system to log the time, date and whereabouts of up to 100 million number plates a day. "In crude terms we're interested in between two and three per cent of all vehicles on the roads," Mr Whiteley said.


"We can use ANPR on investigations or we can use it looking forward in a proactive, intelligence way. Things like building up the lifestyle of criminals - where they are going to be at certain times. We seek to link the criminal to the vehicle through intelligence. Vehicles moving on the roads are open to police scrutiny at any time. The Road Traffic Act gives us the right to stop vehicles at any time for any purpose. So criminals on public roads are vulnerable.


"What makes them doubly vulnerable is that most criminals not only burgle and steal, but they also don't bother to tax their vehicles, insure them and things like that," Mr Whiteley said.


Early in the new year the National ANPR Data Centre will be able to cross-check its database against all vehicles lawfully taxed and insured. All unlawful vehicles will be flagged and when they pass an ANPR camera their movements will register as "hits". The Home Office and the police believe that such a surveillance tool will have a dramatic impact on crime detection as well as the public's attitude to traffic policing.


"The first plus is that we can concentrate our resources on the vehicles we should be stopping. The other plus side is that the 97 per cent of law-abiding motorists should never be bothered by that," Mr Whiteley said.
The National ANPR Data Centre is being built alongside the Police National Computer because of the need to be constantly updated with lists of suspect drivers and vehicles. The design of the system will also take into account future changes to the way cars will be recognised, such as electronic vehicle identification - when a unique identity chip is built in to the bodywork.


Identity chips are being considered as part of a new road-pricing system based on a network of roadside radio receivers. Such electronic tags would, however, also allow a car's movements to be recorded without the need of number-plate cameras.


Asked whether ANPR will be as important as the forensic use of fingerprints and DNA profiling, Mr Whiteley replied: "It has the capability to be as revolutionary. I would describe it as an ubiquitous policing tool. You can use it in all sorts of different ways."

HOW THE INFORMATION IS GATHERED

Fixed cameras at strategic sites
Many thousands of traffic cameras on main roads, motorways, ports and petrol stations will read car numbers using Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR)

Mobile units
Every force will have a fleet of specially fitted police vans with ANPR cameras. These will work alongside high-speed intercept officers

CCTV in towns & cities
Many existing traffic cameras in towns and cities are being converted to read number plates automatically as part of the new national surveillance network

CONSTANT UPDATES
Police National Computer
The PNC will supply updates on vehicles and drivers of interest to the police

Insurance data
Uninsured drivers will be identified from data provided by the insurance industry

MoT data
Vehicles without a valid MoT test certificate will be flagged

Vehicle licence data
All vehicles without a valid tax disc or with unlawful number plates will be identified

WHERE THE INFORMATION GOES
The new National ANPR Data Centre is to be based at Hendon in north London, the site of the existing Police National Computer. It is being designed to store 35 million number plate 'reads' per day, to be expanded to 100 million reads within a couple of years. The time, date and place of each vehicle sighting will be stored for at least two years, with plans to extend this period to five years. Special 'data mining' software can trawl for movements and associations

WHO USES THE INFORMATION
Police
Every police force will have direct computer access to the National ANPR Data Centre. Intelligence officers will be able to access data on a car's movements over a number of years

MI5
The Security Services have special exemption under the Data Protection Act to use ANPR information for purposes of national security. Anti-terrorism will be their main interest


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[dalyduo]

This means that no-tell motels near public transportation will soon be doing record business in England.

[WatertownNewbie]

Have you all forgotten James Bond's rotating license plate on his Aston-Martin?

[MJAmok]

If they start talking about that here, I'm going to have Ludwig refer me as a member to the ACLU!

BTW... do we believe that story? It sounds a bit far fetched to me!

[sydude]

This is absolutely on the level, and absolutely scary. I'm unashamed to admit my political conservativism, but this is something that I would loudly say that I completely disagree with and would be embarassed by on a human level, let alone on a motoring enthusiast's point of view. And yes, I'm pretty sure that the US will try everything it can to get this going here too.

And just to make the outlook even more bleak, kitting your car with a 007 license plate changer will not work for long, either. Soon they won't need cameras to record your car - your plate will have an RFID chip in it that will be scanned by sensors in the road electronically. And I'm sure that if you did drive around with a false tag, they'd identify you, arrest you and finally charge you using the patriot act, putting you in Gitmo for 40+ with no phone calls and no visitors... NOT FUN.... And all so you can drive your 'pre-computer guided car' at sensible speeds...

Click here for more on RFID technology:

http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,68429,00.html

[cdh]

Mixed feelings, and if you don't already know I am on the conservative side. Mixed because I am all for law enforcement, especially now that A-Q wants us all dead. The system has proven to be effective at nailing the bad guys, this is good. It could certainly assist in keeping track of the huge flow of illegals in the US, but would it hurt legal immigrants more? I don't see how, but the bad guys aren't tagged/followed as easily, mixed feelings.

Does the article ever mention going after speeders? I skimmed. I know this system could simply nail and mail (you a ticket) so if it is used for this end I am obviously against it. Not mentioning speeders as a target is good PR and it might be too irresistable a windfall for the constables to ignore...but it is good at catching the (really) bad guys.

I think it's going to happen anyway so I prefer to look at what good it can do. Hey, I got nothing to hide! Go ahead, bug the calls, find the bad guys (please remember this after the next big hit), what the hell is everyone crying about?????
Oops, don't want to take this thread off topic


Welcome to the 21st century.

[MJAmok]

We all want to "catch the bad guys". The problem is defining "bad".

I don't care where you are along the political spectrum, I doubt anyone would argue if the system was used exclusively and accurately to nail car thiefs, terrorists, and the like.

But then what? Speeders is obvious. I HATE that idea. I bet everyone on this forum does. But how do you argue? "It is my right to break the law if all I am doing is speeding"?? Hardly!

It is a scary thought for sure.

I'm personally saving up to buy an island. Gonna make my own laws!

[Moxie]

Moxie's top 10 reasons why the British auto surveillance system isn't really so bad.

1. It can be used to conclusively prove that Jaguars do, in fact, spend most of the time in garages being repaired.

2. Considering that Britain's worst-ever terrorist incidents involved bombing subways and buses, it validates everything we've ever believed about government decision-making.

3. Following the successful recruitment of a former NYC MTA executive to run the London transit system, the new surveillance program is being run by a former FEMA executive -- so it will certainly never work.

4. The BBC plans to purchase access to the data for the world's most boring reality TV show. Working titles include "Lost" (that was already taken), "Survivor - M1," "Project Highway," and "Trading Parking Spaces."

5. The electronic network that connects all the cameras is being supplied by Lucas and it will never work in the rain.

6. Implementation of the system may be delayed several years until the British figure out a way to make it leak oil.

7. A bazillion-dollar national highway security system in a country where it rains 364 days a year can be defeated by mud-spattered license plates.

8. As a terror-prevention strategy, it is not quite as bad as shooting Brazilians.

9. If the British do it, every country in continental Europe will automatically reject the idea, claiming that it will never work for left-hand drive cars.

10. After a few years of intermittent operation at staggering financial cost, Britain will sell the system to BMW, which will figure out a way to run it reliably and at a profit.

[dalyduo]

Pip Pip, Cheerio, and all that sort of rot. LOL Good stuff!
Well done Lee

[MJAmok]

very clever!

[macdod]

Brilliant!

[cdh]

Originally Posted by Moxie

Moxie's top 10 reasons why the British auto surveillance system isn't really so bad.

5. The electronic network that connects all the cameras is being supplied by Lucas and it will never work in the rain.

so good Lee, cryin . You didn't mention as with all Lucas electronics/lighting, the equipment will not work at night.

spot on

[tom goodhart]

Kinda spoils the fun for those of us who like to do donuts in empty parking lots, not to mention speeding in general.

[dalyduo]

Going off-topic for a moment...

Tom, where did the yellow RT in your avatar come from? Is that a photoshop creation or something on the west coast that hasn't made it east yet?

[tom goodhart]

Its from 2001 when Skippy had colors, green, blue, orange and of course yellow in addition to the red and white currently being used. I vote for colors.

[rhpearson]

Lee, you should send your list to SniffPetrol

On the other hand, this is rather scary; an Orwellian nightmare. The problem with a surveillance system--as I think Michael suggests is defining "bad." Heck, wouldn't this system not just put an end to speeding--maybe?--but what abouy shaggin' in cars? Bye-bye to Paradise by the dashboard lights!

[gmg321]

War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.

Good luck Michael! In college I referred to myself as a realist. With age I've come to realize I'm a cynic. Either way it should be an pathetic transgression to behold...

[cdh]

Originally Posted by tom goodhart

Its from 2001 when Skippy had colors, green, blue, orange and of course yellow in addition to the red and white currently being used. I vote for colors.

The series did indeed look more polished/professional with the multi-colored body sections, and you knew who was in your mirrors or sights without having to see the helmet...

OK, back to the surveillance question

[cheekychica]

When I was little, the fleet of cars looked like a package of M&Ms. And you could read the numbers more easily, as well. There certainly was never the problem that there is now: "it's the 4th...no 5th white car behind the two red cars..." Radio commentary has definitely become more reliant on everyone's being able to see the numbers on the car or just knowing who the drivers are by their helmets.

The multi-colour fleet was much more cheery and would be nice to see again, but that was also the era of those unfortunate OP courderoy hotpants for men along pit lane, and I don't think we need to have those make a comeback!

[5&counting]

I really miss the colors, I really do. Especially Pink.. Oh wait did I say that.

If I lived in the Uk I would leave and go to another 3rd world country.

Happy New Year.


HAZ

[OLDMAN]

GPS devices in every car. Tax them by the mile! Orwell was right.

OLDMAN

[cdh]

reminds me of a story of a MB driver who tracked his car at LRP and blew something up. Back at the dealership, the service manager wondered why his GPS history showed the car driving to NW Connecticut then driving around in 1.5 mile circles for hours.

His warranty claim was denied. Very Scary.......

.

[cdh]

Originally Posted by 5&counting

I really miss the colors, I really do. Especially Pink.. Oh wait did I say that. HAZ

here ya go Haz

[sydude]

Originally Posted by cdh

here ya go Haz

WAIT, you forgot something!

[cdh]

Originally Posted by sydude

WAIT, you forgot something!

last one....

[Moxie]

FYI -- I emailed a colleague in the UK (my authority on all things British) a copy of the Belfast Telegraph story, and here is his reply:

"As a keen motorist you will see the downside of this and it is an extension that has been happening in the UK recently which has affected the speed we travel around the place - these GATSO cameras have made life for motorists a misery over the last few years .... they make a fortune in fines but are cruelly effective ... Now it looks like they want to crack down on unlicensed vehicles as they get filmed on the motorways and main trunk roads. The current labour Government is being very hard on motorists and I suspect this is a numbers exercise to show results around non-taxed and insured vehicles."