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Anger as car journey data stored
15 Sep 2008- Greek parliament approves debt bill
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Civil liberties campaigners have expressed alarm that millions of car journeys are to be stored on a national database for five years.
Already some 10 million journeys a day are being recorded using automatic number plate recognition (ANPR), but this is set to rise to 50 million.
It will be collated at a new National ANPR Data Centre in Hendon, north London, for use by police.
While the original period for which the data was planned to be held was two years, the Home Office has confirmed that it was now being kept for five years.
The disclosure came after a freedom of information request by The Guardian.
The paper has also obtained an Acpo ANPR strategy document advising officers to "fully and strategically exploit" the data gathered.
Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, said the database gave police "extraordinary powers of surveillance" that were "unnecessary and disproportionate".
He added: "This is possibly one of the most valuable reserves of data imaginable."
Reader views (7)
Number plate recognition is useful until such time that the pay for car journey infrastructure is developed.
Also do not forget access to all of your emails and texts. GPS chip in mobile phones means that your movements can be monitored except when underground. Though Oystercard journey details kept to cover that problem. The only problem is data overload for big brother. That is why it makes sense (to them), if oyster and cashless payment chip are incorporated into your mobile phone.
Organized criminals and terrorists will evade detection problems, therefore information gathering will be made be useful by spying on the rest.
My question is:
Did this Governmemt's hamfisted blunderbuss approach to dealing with alcohol related problems, by raising taxes across the board rather than stopping cheap supermarket sales; come about, as a result of a deal where security services access to loyalty card info was agreed in return for a measure which affects pubs by increasing the relative attractiveness of buying alcohol at the checkout? I would not be surprised. As it is becoming increasingly obvious that there is nothing that Nu-Labour would not stoop to. Other than reducing immigration and the stopping of hand outs of benefits to its supporter base.
- Harry H, London UK, 15/09/2008 17:45
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I suggest caution here, it may not have happened to you, but Number Plates have been cloned to get around the congestion charge, and back in 1992, somebody drove in to a garage in a car the same colour and model as mine, and drove off with £18.00 of fuel. when the police brought me the photograph, it certainly looked like my car.
I knew I had not been at Thurrock Services at the time, but the police advised me that I could accept a caution if I was willing to pay ESSO back the money or I would be charged. I refused to pay and refused the caution, and I was asked to visit the local police station again nine days later to be charged, and was given bail till then.
I had never had any dealings with the police, and it was a serious worry to me, I did not want a criminal record, or damage to my reputation.
When I went back, lucky for me, Police in Harlow in Essex, had recovered the car when it attempted to drive off from a Petrol Station there.
To rely on Number Plate recognition is senseless. The Sergeant at the police station admitted something similar had happen to his wife's sister.
- John Kirby, Crouch End, Islington, 15/09/2008 17:37
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Who dreams up these frightening ideas? They should be exposed and sacked! What with fingerpints for council wotkers in Westminster, registers for anyone working with kids etc etc., it seems to me that people in so-called authority have gone mad but it is WE, the voters, are locked in the asylum called Modern Britain! Wasn't there an exploit in WW2 called The Great Escape? Where to? To poor old England!
- John Johnson, London, UK, 15/09/2008 13:55
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Wait until the government or Transport For London try to bring in 'fairer and more flexible road pricing'. All our journeys would then be tracked. It wouldn't take much for someone to divulge, lose or sell the data.
The government's push for sharing our data across departments can only make matters worse.
Civil servants at the Department of Work & Pensions have already been found to be colluding with fraudsters on an industrial scale, and we all know what happens to discs? The PA Consulting fiasco also shows that the private sector isn't exactly secure either.
- Jools, London, 15/09/2008 13:06
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When they come for YOU Mr Watson you may be less sanguine.
- Neil, london uk, Airstrip ONE ., 15/09/2008 12:15
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Can someone explain just how this affects our civil liberties? It sounds like a wise and dilligent use of technology.
- Martin H Watson, Teddington, 15/09/2008 10:15
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This is the government in absolute fear of it's people implementing a guilty until proven innocent approach to our god given right to privacy and sense of dignity. We should all be worried. Ironically, any attempt to stop this happening will be usurped using these very technologies. OK, so we all post our outrage on these comments forums, but will anyone save us?
- Vision Aforethought, Oxford, 15/09/2008 09:53
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