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UK To Passively Monitor Every Vehicle
DrSkwid writes "The UK Police are building a network to monitor the movement of every vehicle in the U.K. through an extensive Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system. The data will be retained for 2 years. The Register further reports that the system will likely be used for issuing speeding fines." From the article: "The primary aims claimed for the system are tackling untaxed and uninsured vehicles, stolen cars and the considerably broader one of 'denying criminals the use of the roads.' But unless the Times has got the spacing wrong, having one every quarter of a mile on motorways quite clearly means they'll be used to enforce speed limits as well, which would effectively make the current generation of Gatsos obsolete. Otherwise, checking a vehicle's tax and insurance status every 15 seconds or thereabouts would seem overkill."
That we in the colonies won the war and started a country that didn't take away our rights and treat us like criminals.
Lenina Huxley, you are fined one-half credit for a sotto voce violation of the Verbal Morality Statute. Additionally, you are fined 120 credits per infraction of the Safe Speed Statutes, for exceeding the speed limit of 45 miles per hour on the freeway 72 times this morning. Be Happy!
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
In other news, the Atlantic Ocean is described as being "considerably broader" than the English Channel.
But these are folks whose pet name for the gulf of water separating North America from Europe as "the pond".
One might go further and suggest that British people are prone to occasional tendencies towards understatement.