CCTV Network Tracks Getaway Car

An anonymous reader writes "The BBC is reporting that a 'pioneering number plate recognition system in Bradford played a vital role in the arrests of six suspects' after the murder of a Policewoman - within minutes of Friday's shootings, police were using the system to track the suspected getaway car." From the article: "When a car is entered on the system it will 'ping' whenever it passes one of our cameras, which makes it a lot easier to track than waiting for a patrol car to spot it."

Comments

Secure Beneath the Watchful Eyes

[ToastyKen]

These posters were all over London when I was there a couple of years ago. No joke.

Re:You live in a police state: Rejoice!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wait until someone commits a crime USING this system.

Its a lot easier to rob a bank and flee the country when the police all go after your "Getaway Car" in London while you take the train to Calais.

It's also a lot easier to find those pesky activists that don't like cameras everywhere.

Or round up undesirables for imprisonment.

Or single out your rival.

Or stalk your ex.

Or find a diplomat's motorcade.

Fake plates

[Jherek Carnelian]

All this will do is create a big black market for fake plates.

If you are going to commit a crime, make sure you pick up a 10-pack of fake plates and switch them out randomly during your arrival and your getaway. Even better if the fakes use valid numbers off other vehicles in the same vicinity giving the coppers two nearby "pings" to choose from. They don't even have to be high-quality fakes, just enough to fool the cameras and anyone else looking at them from a distance.

Re:Reflective license plates??

[sanx]

In the UK, it is illegal to deliberately obscure your numberplate. Most of the fixed speed cameras work thus. Radar measures your speed. If you're over the limit, then two pictures are taken about 0.5s apart. The majority of the cameras point in the direction of the traffic and use a white flash. There are some that point towards the front of the vehicle and use an infrared flash (the numberplate backing is reflective and the letters are black) and film.

Numerous methods of speed camera avoidance have been tested: hairspray, cling film (PVC film), refraction grid plate covers, etc. Absolutely none of them work.

However, my dad did come up with a couple of really good ideas to counter them. As the use of radar jammers (as opposed to detectors) is illegal, you need to disrupt the photo process. The cameras that use white flashes would be easiest to disrupt. Mount a photographic slave flash trigger above the numberplate, connected and adjacent to two fast-charging flash guns. Speed camera flashes, slave trigger fires and the two numberplate flash guns go off. Result: one completely over-exposed photo with the number plate hopefully obscured by a white smear.

For the infra-red cameras, drill a few holes at random in the plate and mount a number of high-intensity infra-red LEDs in the holes. Not sure how effective this would be, but it would certainly make life a bit more difficult for the people looking at the pics.

Not bad at all

[SuperKendall]

Automated camera systems to track the movements of every car in the country and then keep that on a permanent record are VERY bad

You are anthropomorphizing the data (I refuse to make the obvious joke). The data itself is not bad or good. The data is just data, another tool.

What is bad or good is the procedures by which this data is accessed, the uses to which it is put.

The real question is - is this tool too powerful to exist? I do not think so as long as there is oversight in it's use, because it can do a lot of real good - as in the case of the killers being caught, or (potentially) a vast reduction in stolen cars.

People like to argue that the genie is out of the bottle in regards to filesharing. Well, the genie of pervasive monitoring is so close to out as to make no difference. So we as humanity must adjust and figure out how we are to live with this very powerful tool, and make it serve us instead of fearing it just as the RIAA and ilk must figure how to live in a world when anything can be copied. This situation may seem dissimilar but it is not; something you do not wish to happen is becoming prevalent so instead of a futile battle to stop what cannot be stopped, figure out what leverage you have to control its use.

Some people also claim the UK is now a "Police State". They are mistaken; the difference between a police state and this is that in a Police State is that you are always being WATCHED (or be made to think you are). In the case of the modern UK your public actions are constantly being RECORDED. There is a huge difference between activity and passivity.

If a system is passive and takes no action without direction, if a person in order to direct a system to take action has oversight and rules binding what they may do, then I am generally OK with that system. A network of passive cameras that can be used to track fleeing thugs or stolen cars? Grand. A network of cameras that automatically issues tickets without intervention? Now that pisses me off and I think is a serious misuse of the power granted to the government. The sooner people see the difference the sooner they can push for oversight and reasonable use of the cameras.

Having read David Brin I would argue that any feed from a public camera also be publically accessible. When anyone can watch anyone else, when the police as well as citizens are bothe being recorded in public - then there is equal footing.