June 21st, 2006
License Plate Scanners to Curb License Tax Avoidance
By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
See that license plate? If you were to see that on the road today, it would obviously have expired registration tags (the picture was taken off a site that “collects” plates, don’t worry). The U.K. is clamping down on such scofflaws (literally) by sending out a fleet of vans with license plate scanning technology to look for them.
The vans will be equipped with automatic license plate recognition cameras that will scan plates and check them against the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency’s database of untaxed vehicles.
Vehicles identified as untaxed by the vans will be clamped and impounded, the DLVA said. For clamped vehicles, a valid tax disc must be produced along with a release fee of 80 pounds ($147). Those cars not claimed within seven days can be crushed. Source: ZDNet
We Say: Seven days or crushed? Give them a little time so you can get some of those fees back. 
There are a lot of expired tags out there, and this would be great for California. What worried me was the fact that when I typed in “License Plate” into Google to get a picture for this article I found a bunch of lookup sites for license plate numbers — reverse lookup to find the owner, I mean.
Desmond Crisis says:
Just got back from a Motorola Dealer Expo and they were showing this equipment, which is already available for purchase. They said that it reads about two plates per second, but when I asked, they conceded that it can’t tell the difference between different states.
DC
June 21st, 2006 at 6:18 am
David says:
They just installed these on Buffalo, NY police cars. I think they said they can scan 7 plates a minute with it, or maybe it was 7 plates at once? Anyway, very creepy big brother thing.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:32 am
John says:
Big Brother strikes again. Why don’t we just have them come to everyone’s neighborhoods and do a house to house search for any infraction they can find? That would make the world a much better place.
June 21st, 2006 at 9:59 am
Charles says:
Big Brother? Would you be ok with a DMV employee walking through a parking lot and calling plate numbers into the office? If you live in the Bay Area, your plate is already scanned everytime you drive over a bridge.
I’m sorry, but this is not a ‘Big Brother’ thing. It’s automated auto licensing enforcement. It’s something that we currently expect our police departments to do, only this technology does it much faster.
June 22nd, 2006 at 5:01 am
Stephen says:
Police are already testing out automated scanners in the US. Previously they had to manually enter the plate #’s into a PC. Now the machinery does it for them. If it helps find stolen cars quicker then so much the better.
June 22nd, 2006 at 11:02 am
John says:
Yes, because ‘helping find stolen cars’ definitely warrants usurping peoples’ privacy. Police really shouldn’t be entering a license plate number without probable cause. But hey, that’s just me. Most people say, “If you’re not doing anything wrong, what do you have to be worried about?”. Well, back to my original house to house search. . .if you’re not doing anything wrong…
June 22nd, 2006 at 1:12 pm
Charles says:
Nice slippery slope…
You don’t think there is a little difference between a State issued license plate and your personal residence?
They are looking for delinquent licensing fees. A violation that is immediately visible and public on the plate itself. What else will scanning the plate find? Stolen vehicles, license #s on an amber alert. Even though it does place you at a specific location at a specific time, I seriously doubt they’ll run the scanner by your local porn shop, so I think you’ll be safe. It will most likely be used at malls and sports arenas.
June 22nd, 2006 at 2:16 pm
AC says:
Why exactly do we have to “register” our cars, anyway? I mean other than the fact that the fee-collection Gestapo will find us, and extort the money from us. What purpose does this serve, other than funding another useless bureaucratic entity, that we would be better off without?
June 22nd, 2006 at 2:55 pm
Dan says:
I think you are all forgetting those license plates are property of the state and in order for you to enjoy the privilege of driving you have to hang one on your car.
Get over it. You have nothing to fear from a machine scanning for plates with invalid tags unless you let them expire. They are enforcing a law, if you don’t like it walk.
I mean they already have all of your information available to them in the license plate database anyway, I don’t see the problem unless your breaking the law.
June 22nd, 2006 at 3:22 pm
Dan says:
I think you are all forgetting those license plates are property of the state and in order for you to enjoy the privilege of driving you have to hang one on your car.
Get over it. You have nothing to fear from a machine scanning for plates with invalid tags unless you let them expire. They are enforcing a law, if you don’t like it walk.
I mean they already have all of your information available to them in the license plate database anyway, I don’t see the problem.
June 22nd, 2006 at 3:23 pm
Michael says:
I think it’s well within the rights of the licensing authority (Your state, or country government) to do this sort of thing, but it seems scary to think that enforcement of every law will soon be automated. Especially when you consider that even the most law abiding citizens probably break at least 1 law a day. Whether it’s jay walking, or speeding (even 1 mph over is illegal), everyone is almost constantly breaking laws.
People agree to pass these new laws I think because they don’t really take into consideration what would happen if every one of them were to be enforced to the degree that it could be. $1000 fine for littering? It’s not currently enforced that way, but it’s written so that it can be.
For all of the people who would say they don’t do anything wrong, so they aren’t worried, you might think about that, because you’re probably just as much of a criminal as anyone else.
June 22nd, 2006 at 3:30 pm
don says:
r-e-v-e-n-u-e. That’s all I can say. AC is right on the money. The Gestapo is all about power, control and $$. Should we pay our just fees? Sure. Should we be ‘legal’? Sure. Should we have every event of our life examined, taxed, controlled, kept ‘in line’? Hell no. Red light cameras have been consistently proven inaccurate; only a few of us endure the hassle, bother, headaches to fight these injusatices…most sigh, sag shoulders and send the check…and the Police State knows it. Even grocery scanners are robbing us regularly these days. I do everything I can to be a good law abiding citizen, but I am more than tired of this grief…especially when motorists are a favorite target.
June 22nd, 2006 at 3:58 pm
Charles says:
Don, you are playing fast and loose with some of your information there. Grocery scanners are not robbing you regularly these days. Are there errors? Sure, but I can tell you some favor the consumer at times. Red light cameras inaccurate? Sure, news flash, everything is inaccurate. It’s life. I’m willing to bet that there are fewer drivers trying to race through a yellow when those cameras are around too. There’s a good and bad side to everything.
For what it’s worth, I’m all about small government. I think the amount of government we have is far too big, but that’s different than specific technologies implemented to change behavior.
Law abiding citizen? Me? For the most part. I’m late on paying my registration half the time, and I am definitely in the top 1% of fast drivers. It’s amazing I haven’t got popped in the last 3 years for speeding. Let’s not even talk about those U-turns across double lines to catch that parking space…
June 22nd, 2006 at 4:29 pm
Lockergnome's Tech News Watch says:
License Plate Scanners To Curb License Tax Avoidance
Michael Santo of RealTechNews writes: See that license plate? If you were to see that on the road today, it would obviously have expired registration tags (the picture was taken off a site that “collects” plates, don’t worry). The U.K. is clamping d…
June 22nd, 2006 at 10:01 pm
David says:
Abuse CAN and WILL happen.
It is a part of life. We must deal with the fact that no matter what we create, we are bound to it.
There will allways be a BACK to every FRONT.
Unless you want to go BACK to the “stone age”, I suggest that you look at it as life.
It is NOT government.. It is the Ying/Yang, Front/Back, Up/Down.
You can not have one without the other. IT is IMpossible.
You must weigh the good-v-evil …. then base your usage on the results. Just think about ALL the things we have today… CARS.
Someone can abuse the use of a CAR very easily. Use it to steal things, kidnap people, rape people, murder/mame people, crash into your property. {I could go on and on).
SO, should be abolish CARS; Destroy them and their use just because of the EVIL they can be used for?
What of the other things we have created?
Just learn that you must PICK the lesser of 2 evils… This is life…. DEAL
June 23rd, 2006 at 11:25 am
GiM says:
They know when a plate is expired and can send a mail to you: 1) continue using it, but pay now; 2) return the plate if you do not want to use it anymore. OR, you are an outlaw!
Expire date on the plate? Why not your name too, or the names of all the children… However, scanning plates, they acquire also your data: that day, that hour, you were that place, that sped (legally, certainly
, and so on, and did they ask for a disclosure agreement to use your data? Nope…
Anything today turn to this: author rights; if it is music or movies, you (a physical entity) are supposed to just view/hear it; but id it anything else (like habits), they - the state/corporation and not the authors, want to control all… Strange that the author rights can be (ab)used just by a corporate entity… and a physical entity must just watch.
June 25th, 2006 at 9:04 am
supakiki says:
My car was stolen 3 weeks ago, and this system found it, totally abandoned behind some 4-plexes. It probably would have taken them a lot longer to find my car had they not used this equipment. I am very thankful for it!
June 29th, 2006 at 12:54 pm
ccollins says:
I don’t get it—a picture of a California License plate, illustrating a story about the UK cracking down on unregistered vehicles. Does not make sense!
October 18th, 2006 at 7:04 am
EKAL says:
This technology is all fine and dandy. AS LONG AS THEY DONT KEEP A MASTER DATABASE OF ALL OF THIS INFORMATION TO USE AGAINST YOU IN THE FUTURE. OR EVEN TO SELL TO OTHER COMPANIES!!
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