Big Brother is on the way

I personally have no problem with having my plates scanned as:

1) My car is likely to get found if its stolen
2) Its taxed and has an MOT
3) I don't have a council estate font on my number plate

I am fully for getting people caught for breaking the rules.
 
I personally have no problem with having my plates scanned as

Would you have a problem with having a GPS transmitter fitted in your car? Because if there are enough of these cameras it will come close to that; without needing to fit anything in your car.
 
I couldn't give a toss. As long as I don't go stealing any cars or attending anti-war protests then i'll be fine :)

And if my car were ever to be stolen then these things can help out.
 
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Would you have a problem with having a GPS transmitter fitted in your car? Because if there are enough of these cameras it will come close to that; without needing to fit anything in your car.

I pay my road tax, MOT, insurance and have a full license - As this is the requirement to drive a car.

People who don't conform to these rules need to get caught.
 
Labour in yet another example of people don't need civil liberties or freedom from spying shocker...
 
And why do you need cameras for that?

There is a national database of all the cars - the DVLA have the address of the person who owns the car; the date when the tax expires; the date when MOT expires; the insurance information for the car.

Why do you need a camera to work out when any of the above have lapsed? Given the fact all the data is there all you need is someone to troll though the database, forward the addresses to the police and then tell the police to do their job instead of doing nothing.
 
If this system is used properly, then there wont be a problem.

But as we can all expect, and as the article alludes to, it wont be used properly, and the headlines will be full of inocent people who get arrested under the terrorism act because their car was marked for being parked within 100 meters of some dropped litter.
 
But not everyone thinks it is such a good thing.

John Catt found himself on the wrong side of the ANPR system. He regularly attends anti-war demonstrations outside a factory in Brighton, his home town.

It was at one of these protests that Sussex police put a "marker" on his car. That meant he was added to a "hotlist".

This is a system meant for criminals but John Catt has not been convicted of anything and on a trip to London, the pensioner found himself pulled over by an anti-terror unit.

"I was threatened under the Terrorist Act. I had to answer every question they put to me, and if there were any questions I would refuse to answer, I would be arrested. I thought to myself, what kind of world are we living in?"

Sussex police would not talk about the case.
 
I don't see a problem with it personally. If anything, it's doing a good job to catch criminals. So long as our personal information isn't being passed on to other companies then fine.
 
I support ANPR technology, it's very useful to make sure our roads of free from uninsured drivers.

However, I am rather concerned about the fact these details are kept for up to 2 years. Vehicles which have not thrown up any alert should not be stored.
 
They only have another year in power, then all this garbage will be will be thrown out.

No it won't, nothing from previous governments ever gets thrown out, were you born yesterday? Besides, it honestly wouldn't surprise me if Gordon gets back in anyway.
 
No it won't, nothing from previous governments ever gets thrown out, were you born yesterday? Besides, it honestly wouldn't surprise me if Gordon gets back in anyway.

I'm old enough to remember life before Nulabour, lots of things get cancelled and changed when a new party gets in.
 
I don't like to take sides too much on these things, no one wants less civil liberties, but I agree that scumbags that should be caught never are because we don't have cost effective ways of policing them..
 
I support ANPR technology, it's very useful to make sure our roads of free from uninsured drivers.

However, I am rather concerned about the fact these details are kept for up to 2 years. Vehicles which have not thrown up any alert should not be stored.

Yeah, this is a tricky one, from a policing side, if you suddenly become aware of a vehicle and put a marker on it, having the previous 2 years of movement of that vehicle is no doubt going to be helpful in some situations.

I'm not advocating it though, I personally feel I have nothing to hide, and if they want records of my car heading to the Zoo, the beach, the pub for 2 years, on the surface I don't mind. But I understand the concern of data misuse (including being stolen etc), I just also see the risk of having no data allowing criminals to carry on unabated..
 
I just also see the risk of having no data allowing criminals to carry on unabated..

What risk? That's how it's always been in the past, and I'm far from convinced that this new surveillance culture has changed anything. Is the country a safer/more pleasant place? I don't think so.
 
What risk? That's how it's always been in the past, and I'm far from convinced that this new surveillance culture has changed anything. Is the country a safer/more pleasant place? I don't think so.

In the past? in certain areas of crime , like uninsured drivers, drug dealers/users etc they have been steadily on the increase for many years, certainly out-stripping the growth in population? in which case, the risk is 'greater'..

But regarding all this surveillance I'm not convinced either..

But I do see on programs like 'road wars' and similar that ANPR markers and town CCTV's seem to catch some criminals that certainly would have got away with their crimes.. And a lot of uninsured/illegal drivers are caught this way.

Clearly for some crimes that are on the increase, we need more policing of one form or another, and when it comes to cost effective policing, it seems things like ANPR fit at least that role. How, and to what degree I'd not like to say.
 
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