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Cameras in UK for Toll Enforcement

Posted by Cliff on from the smile-you're-on-candid-toll-camera dept.

cosyne writes "Saw this story on BBC News about charging people £5 per day to drive in central London. The interesting part: they plan to use surveillance cameras to snap liscence plates and compare to a database of people who paid. That's the same as stopping terrorism, right?" We mentioned this issue in an earlier story. It's an interesting challenge: the UK authorities have a problem (too much traffic in London) which is not susceptible to the usual solution (too many ways into London, can't put tolls on all of them) and so they're looking for new solutions - except most of the possible solutions are privacy-invasive in one way or another.

6 of 572 comments (clear)

  1. Slashdot ned cameras by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    For Troll enforcement. Get it? Toll -> troll.

    Hahaha!

    -- Anonymous Cowfart
    This comment would have been at -1 too, if i weren't for the two comments per day-limit. Write your Slashdot representative now!

  2. Re:Once again... by Observer · · Score: 3, Funny
    when you get charged for driving in london (visiting your mistress) and your wife opens up the bill with the revealing photo.
    <cynic>
    Spare us, please. If you can afford to run a mistress on the side, you can afford a taxi.
    </cynic>
  3. Re:Seems like a bad idea by Sylvanus · · Score: 4, Funny

    Try riding a bicycle in central London and then you'd think it was a great idea. Think of it like this:

    Car Drivers = Users of IE5 and IE 6
    Car Manufacturers = The Borg
    Cyclists and Pedestrians = Linux and FreeBSD hackers

    Around 20 Linux hackers a year are turned into Jam by ignoramuses using IE 5 (the number of cyclists killled by chromed SUVs in London) and finally the government steps in to stop the slaughter with a new law called the DMCA which the MS users club scream is an invasion of privacy. Smug kernel hackers point out that as long as you use Linux 2 wheels no one can get you with the DMCA and all PC / CD use is free.

    Cue a huge rise in the number of fat-bottomed housewives picking up copies of RedHat in Dixons and the world lives happily ever after.....

  4. Re:It's spelt license by MrYotsuya · · Score: 2, Funny

    You should look at it again they spell it "liscence".

    Moron.

  5. What an outrage! by WalterSobchak · · Score: 3, Funny

    Oh, sorry, misread. I thought the headline said "Cameras in UK for Troll Enforcement".

    Bummer

    Alex

    --
    Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder
  6. Public Transportation by paranoid.android · · Score: 3, Funny

    Public Transportation in the USA: Clean, Reliable, Affordable. Choose None.