Police road camera network targets criminals

English and Welsh police forces are developing a national network of thousands of cameras that will scan number plates and check them against police databases, a move they say will keep criminals off the road.

The cameras use automatic number plate recognition technology (ANPR) to check a vehicle’s identity against the Police National Computer, records at the DVLA and local intelligence systems.

Cars flagged by the system can then be stopped by police and, in a trial of the technology by 23 forces last year, police stopped 180,543 vehicles and made 13,499 arrests, bagging 1,152 stolen vehicles and 13 firearms.

The updated ANPR strategy calls for the development of a national infrastructure of ANPR-enabled cameras and readers, and a national datacentre to analyse intelligence from ANPR readers. The datacentre will collect all the readings for crime analysis, ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) said.

All police forces in England and Wales will have at least one dedicated ANPR intercept team by October 2005, with more to follow, the strategy says.

Chief Constable of Hertfordshire Frank Whiteley said: “The launch of the ANPR strategy for the police service is a key step in grasping the opportunities ANPR provides for denying criminals use of the roads. The police service is now integrating ANPR into its day-to-day activities as a mainstream policing tool.”

The government is spending £15m to support ANPR development through to 2006.

The trial of the technology last year ran into problems because of poor quality of the data held in the DVLA database but an ACPO spokeswoman said that steps were being take to improve it.