UK number plate cameras go national
The national rollout of the UK police's ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) system is kicking off, with the goal of deploying a network of over 2,000 cameras on motorways, major roads and city centres. The system is claimed to be able to run database checks on 3,600 plates per hour, on vehicles travelling at speeds of up to 100 mph - but there are just a few snags.
The UK ANPR system is intended to automatically alert police if a car is stolen, if road tax hasn't been paid or the MoT is out of date, or if the driver is uninsured. For good measure, it's supposed to check whether there is a warrant for the arrest of the driver, or whether the driver is for some reason under police surveillance. Register readers being quick, most of you will have spotted a few slight snags there, but we'll get back to them; the most immediate problem is the state of the databases being checked.
