National ANPR system set to go live in three months
A national Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system linking all
43 forces in England and Wales will be ready to go live by June,
according to manufacturers Anite.
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A national Automatic Number Plate
Recognition (ANPR) system linking all 43 forces in England and Wales
will be ready to go live by June, according to manufacturers Anite.
A spokesman for the company said that the system which would be
implemented by PITO in three months time would tell police officers
within four seconds whether a vehicle is uninsured, has been stolen,
is known to have been involved in a crime, or is under surveillance.
The new system will employ thousands of cameras on fixed poles or in
mobile police vans on all major highways, key back roads and vital
intersections across the UK, said the spokesman.
Each of the systems cameras, backed up by computers that read numbers
from their images, can monitor 3,600 license plates per hour. This
information is immediately cross-referenced with a police database of
plates registered to people suspected of breaking the law.
The database is also linked to the DVLA and Motor Insurance databases,
allowing officers to identify vehicles that are not registered, taxed,
insured or are without a valid MOT.
All ANPR systems will be connected and integrated by Anite to ensure
that data is centrally managed and stored, providing an informed and
secure process for making fast and effective decisions.
The national roll out marks a major advance over the past five years;
as recently as 2001, only the Met had specialist ANPR vehicles which
could be set up at the roadside and deployed to monitor high profile
events.
John Dean, ACPO national ANPR co-ordinator, said: Anite has played an
important role in our ANPR trials, resulting in a major increase in the
average number of arrests per officer by up to a factor of 10. The ANPR
system will revolutionise policing.
Lee Hendricks, managing director of Secure Information Solutions at
Anite added: People have the right to live in a safe and secure
society, and surveillance technology is one of the most successful
tools in the police services arsenal. It enables them to act on
real-time intelligence to ensure police attention is focused where it
is most needed.