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UK License Plate Cameras Have "Gaps In Coverage"
Aguazul2 writes "UK police are sad that despite having the most comprehensive driver surveillance system of any developed country, there are still gaps in their coverage. From the article: 'The cameras automatically record plate/time/location information and send it to a central data store, which has complete nationwide records for 6 years.' Also interesting is that an unspecified 'particular driving style' can be used to evade detection by the cameras. It appears, however, that criminals are well aware of the cameras and take other routes. Big Brother technology, coming soon to a country near you!"
So let it be !!
It's OK as long you're not seen by two cameras at the same time.
Say out loud: I'm an Aspie and I'm somewhat proud, I guess. Uh. Can I write an email in all caps instead? Hm...
bit by bit, freedom is chipped away in the name of safety. I know I want no part of such a society.
There is no national plan to cover the whole road network in these cameras which makes saying there are 'gaps' in coverage a little misleading (it even says so in the article). It may well be a hint that universal coverage is a de facto goal of many involved in deploying these cameras. Weird and wacky driving may help you avoid detection but in many cases the bahaviour would draw attention to you and would be counter-productive.
While investigating a deadly car accident in Norway recently, police suggested the car had been driving above 256km/h which avoided recording from the speed camera.
Massive privacy invasion and the people it's ment to keep tabs on know first how to evade the fancy schmancy system.
Are we, law abiding citizens, really that untrustworthy? What for does the police exist, anyway? My word, they've forgotten themselves.
Yeah, because Julia and Winston are supposed to take the train, not drive.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
The world is only now waking up to the dangers of 'big data', and having faceless corporations track your every move across the internet, or your purchases, or your contacts via social media. Governments quite like corporations doing this, since once the data is mined and analyzed, they can get it via court order, for free, with laws that prevent the companies from telling their customers.
What's happening with motoring is similar. Placing ANPR technology on main roads implements the whole-scale surveillance of a nation. Gone are the days of having to have a court order to tap a phone or intercept someone's postal mail. Now, the data is collected and analyzed first - essentially presumed guilt, not presumed innocence.
The linked article suggests that there are ways of defeating ANPR technology. There are perhaps two. The first is to steal the license plates of a different car. This trick has been around for years, and extensive effort has been put into supplying license plates that show clearly visible signs of this - they fracture and turn black. The other is somewhat more dangerous, which is to know in advance where all the cameras are, and then tailgate a large truck past the cameras.
In short, the police have the inclination, budget and incentive to build out a better and better tracking system until even these few gaps are gone.
A more important question, however, may be to step back and look at where the balance now lies in terms of personal freedoms versus state power. The theory of a democracy is that it provides a 'government by the people', yet I wonder how many people are comfortable with the current state of play?
Clearly if your drive very close to the rear of the car in front of you then your number plate will not be visible to the cameras. Strange that the UK police feel that this must be turned into some sort of state secret. Dangerous driving is a good idea when in the UK.
"I will not go into the conduct of such tactics herein," he said, "but it is true to say that a properly trained driver can adopt a particular driving style that will greatly reduce the chance of the vehicle being detected by ANPR.
I assume that "particular style" would be tail gating very close to the car in front when passing the camera? Unless anyone knows any other method?
His dream is finally realized, even though by a different country.
Funny, that. And true. I was driving in England a few weeks ago, and even the simple, solar-panel fed digital speed-warning systems read your plates. Even my (foreign) plates!
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
I used to live 1km from the ANPR that was situated on the "ring of steel" near Canary Wharf in London - or, more accurately - my bedroom window was right next to the point that the cop cars would catch up with the non-taxed, non-MOT'd cars after they had cruised through. At the beginning of the month it was about 2 a night that would be stopped as police cars operated a pincer movement around the Isle of Dogs
the slightly scary thing is that you can buy your own ANPR System off the shelf. (I know that geeks can easy create it themselves using motion and some OCR tools - but, imagine selling this to normal people!!
So one government department issues licensed cars with a number plate and requires people to display them on the front and back of the vehicle. Meanwhile another government department uses cameras and recognition software to read the plates. For goodness sakes - why not put electronic beacons on the cars instead of number plates? Or would that be too simplistic for a government department to get their heads around?
I used to work on license plate recognition about a decade ago. Typically there are problems with illumination, motion and noise. So what the systems try to do is boost illumination (often by hidden IR lights) and decrease motion related blur by taking multiple shots and integrating images and/or filtering the results. All this algorithms have some built in assumptions about the expected area of interest, scale and most likely motion. Suppose you detect license plate at some position and scale in frame N. To boost the probability of being correct, you want to check if you can find the same plate number in frame N+1 and possibly N+2. Detection is all about probability. There are some thresholds built in that on one side maximize the probability of license plate detection and on the other side minimize pollution of the database with bad results. So in short, if your license plate is dirty and your trajectory is not what the system expects (changing lanes and velocity) it's more likely the system will not store the result. If you know the specifics of the particular system, you may beat it easily, like if the system first looks for the plate frame, you can mask or offset the frame, or if you know about the exact illumination filtering procedure you may add some conflicting structured illumination.
I'm Britsh. I left the UK about five years ago. I have no wish to return.
it's all in the name of safety, but have you ever tried to gain access to such surveillance? I mean when you get mugged, or your car gets scartched? Impossible, police just don't care.
It's all about protecting the fat cats...
thanks Mr Cameron, but then again what did we expect...
Veering rapidly from lane to lane, I'd bet.
It will get worse before it will get better
Sorry officer but there is a big muddy puddle just outside of my house.
When I go to the UK, I always change my numberplate to: FU'); DROP Table NUMBERPLATES;--
So the UK government knows that people would oppose being micro-chipped and would also oppose their cars being similarly easily identified, so instead the government introduces draconian facial recognition and number plate recognition by stealth. Is this democracy any more? And what ever happened to the concept of privacy for innocent people?
Currently we see court cases where the fact that a mobile phone was turned off during the period as a reason for suspicion.
How long before driving a route that doesn't involve cameras is also seen as a reason for suspicion?
Which the amount of data our police state is collecting their data storage bill must be astronomical. No wonder there's such high demand for hard drives. I know what I'll be buying shares in...
Reading the above comments it seems that everyone is against it. And I too was against it, until I realised that if my daughter was kidnapped by car and someone had managed to get the licence plate number then I would want every single camera in the country tasked with finding that car.
However, collecting all data vs. 'these are licence plate numbers of interest' is a hugely different task and one has to wonder whether it was the technical difficulties of the latter that may them choose storing all number for 6 years (oh wait, no it doesn't).
(I'm assuming a single kidnapper - not a well organised conspiracy.)
It means that in order to avoid these cameras, from now on you will have to do skidding 360s through every single intersection, like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcmswRwdvnA. It's really just a natural progression from the roundabout.
Whoa, where did that come from? They also claim they "contributed to more than 50,000 arrests". That's a lot of "terrorists" then: maybe we should live in permanent shivering supine unquestioning fear.
Or maybe we could just put Elbonian plates on and jabber "No speaking Englandish!" if stopped, like any halfwit career criminal could figure out.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
1984
Murdoch's papers (News of the World) use to buy information from the police. They even admitted as much to Parliament inquiry as though they were above the law.
I bet they bought the logs of where famous stars and politicians went, when and how.
And if Murdoch can buy that info, how many times do you think other criminals have bought that info. Just as the vehicle registration office was selling license plate information to clamping outfits, debt collectors, pretty much anyone who wanted it, I bet the police have been selling this information too.
What is the betting that's is sold to insurance companies, debt companies, private investigators. Maybe not legally, but then Murdochs Notw buying wasn't legal either.
What if the license plate was surrounded by a ring of ultra-bright IR LEDs. Would that work in flooding the image? I suppose they would need to be just the right frequency.
Or, given the cameras work in IR, cool the plate with Peltier effect devices fixed to the back and have a grid of fine wires suspended in front that a current is passed through to warm them. Invisible to the naked eye, but not to a camera?
The cameras aren't there for ordinary criminals to get caught /tinfoilhat
It's near IR not "proper" IR so that won't work. In far IR the plate would look like a solid block of colour because it's got the same temperature all round.
Don't take my advice (ianal and all that) but if you wanted to you'd be better off filtering near IR with a sheet of special glass (same type they use over CCD camera to only pass visible light). The plate would look normal to the human eye but would be too dark for near IR cameras (maybe). Though covering the plate with anything , even transparent to visible light , is often illegal just about everywhere.
Which is what I've done. Only been stopped once in 5 yearsby some bored country plod , gave some BS excuse and he let me off.
Or you could ride a motorbike - they don't have front plates anyway. Presumably the police arn't interested in catching people on bikes. Perhaps crims don't use them? Oh , wait.... this isn't about catching criminals. Silly me.
Let's stop being angry at the effect (cameras in public places, ZOMG!!).
Let's start getting angry at the root cause: license plate mandates.
When did this happen? Am I a member of the Christian race then? I don't look much like Jesus but hey...
The monitoring will be done by your own bloody car. Real-time tracking will be required to register a car or even obtain insurance as the surety knobs want it too, to increase your rates in real time if the telemetry suddenly goes non-milquetoast.
Remember, citizen: driving is a privilege, not a right. Just like travel, speech, and thought.
1) steal a set of plates from another car
2) place on your car
3) enjoy driving, filling with fuel etc
4) discard plates - goto (1)
Lasts upto 24 hours before plates are reported as stolen as they generally have to check with current owner
and soon to be replaced with
1) raprep plate from same/similar make model color vehicle (I've seen a very convincing copy already)
try telling the police you weren't at the crime scene
criminals will always have the upper hand in a Big Brother/Nanny state
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
No. They are there in readiness for "Pay by mile". The revenue collected from Vehicle Excise Duty has dropped dramatically due to the way V.E.D is now calculated on the emissions of a vehicle. That drop in revenue MUST be replaced by another form of taxation. So in readiness for hybrid/electric/low emission vehicles a new (more thorough) way to tax road use must be incorporated.
Here's a pic of one of the cameras near my depot
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/51/pic1297.jpg/
There's a radar sign near my home that displays nothing if you go, uh, significantly faster than it says you should.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The issue is not the technology, the issue is how it's used and by whom. This is an excellent system for reducing vehicle crime - theft, unisured drivers, unsafe vehicles on the road, etc. that cost us all a shitload of money in taxes, insurance premiums, death. They can do this as much as they like, I'm cool with that, but I want to know that that's ALL they're doing with it, and that they're not selling my data etc. etc.
People need to stop getting all antsy about the technology and concentrate their attention / concerns / questions on HOW it's used.
There is no music - home taping killed it.
Mind the gap!
"It appears, however, that criminals are well aware of the cameras and take other routes"
Careful, that makes anyone whose vehicle does not show up on the cameras possibly shady.... ~;-)
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
Or even find a dis-reputable company that will produce 'fake' plates for a fee/bottle of whiskey
I think this just might maybe have to do with the fact that they cheaped out on low res, grainy, piece of crap cameras that can see about 10 feet reliably.
What if you got your car a rather unique paint job that featured random strings of numbers and letters at different orientations. I wonder how well the tracking system would work, or bet yet, change the paint scheme every so often.
I live near a city called Bradford in the UK where there is so much blatant disregard for road traffic laws that the police just cannot keep up with it, they made a big fuss of putting in a "ring of steel" ANPR system a couple of years ago but it has made zero difference.
I agree with the principle of ANPR and I have sene the results but when you have so many people ignoring the rules of the road, driving without insurance, no tax and no MOT it makes a complete mockery of any automated system they implement.
I know people who buy old cars for a couple of hundred pounds, drive them around until they get stopped, let the car go for crushing, take the slap on the wrist fine and just go buy another old banger.
Why doesn't some ultimate team of ultimate people just smash the cameras?
1) To address the front license plate camera? Tailgate, or just have a muddy car and license plate.
2) To address the rear licence plat camera? Get a bicycle carrier rack that's rear mounted and hang a POS pike that obscures the license plate. Works well with number 1 if the bike in question is a mountain bike (Gives a plausible excuse for why your car is filthy).
I live where we are only required to have a rear license plate. Using trick #2, I haven't had a photo radar ticket in YEARS.
Winston thought he'd found a gap in Big Brother's surveillance net too; turns out it was just what they wanted him to think. Tin foil still works, though.
All those multimillion big bro investments bypassed by something this simple:
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp6SlR5CR0M">License plate flipping on youtube</a>
If you get to the point where you are worried about the cops misusing this stuff, then you're already fucked, as you can't trust your police.
Ignoring the whole innocent until proven guilty bit and right to privacy we in the US are so accustomed to, it's not entirely about the trustworthiness of the police. There will always be crooked cops - put 1,000 people in a room there will be a few bad apples. It's human nature.
More importantly, if the data exists then its security can be compromised. Data in the wild can be used for, well, anything. You may never plan on getting divorced, but if you do you probably don't want your soon-to-be ex-wife's legal council pulling up your whereabouts for the past 6 years. There are lots of scenarios - most of them outlying cases to be sure - where the data could be used against you for profit, or in a defamatory or misleading way.
To put it in computer terms, there's no need to back up your data on your PC because real failures that result in permanent, irrevocable data loss are actually very, very rare on a probabilistic basis given regular replacement of hardware. But smart people back up their data anyway - because nobody wants to be part of the statistically small group which lost all of their life's work in a lightning storm.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Devil's advocate: Wouldn't this be a good argument FOR plate tracking? Sure, the plates were at the crime scene. But if they start tracing the vehicle back on its journey, they'll find it came out of 123 Seedy Garage Lane. They'll also have a record of your car pulling into 1701 Enterprise Blvd., parking, and never leaving.
UTF-8: There and Back Again
you can make a convincing copy of a uk numberplate with flourescent yellow art paper, and a inkjet printer.
Print out in banner mode, then cover with a sheet of perspex.
I know this because when they stopped making show plates, we all just reverted to printing our own plates out.
Also, plate fraud is not a new thing, in 2002 I got a notice of prosecution for speeding for my mini three counties away, which at the alleged time of incident was in the garage having its inner wings, bulkhead and other structural pieces replaced. I had to supply proof of this before they would drop the prosecution because of course, the never failing camera systems had detected it driving at speed. If my car had been parked in the drive in this period instead, I would have got 3 penalty points and a fine for the privilege without a doubt.
I do not drive myself, but wondered about this.
How about you ring your license plate with infra red LEDs to make it too bright for the cameras to read what is on it?
Normal cop won't see a problem, but cameras, well, it would be too bright to read it.
Be seeing you...