Safe Speed Forums

JUDGE IN CAMERAS TAX BLAST

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Speed camera policy Kills

that's a belter!

This really starts the blood boiling. This poor old guy probably thought he was driving at a safe and responsible speed considering he was caught doing 46 mph. I just can’t believe it when I hear how police can start enhancing pictures to ensure a prosecution, how low do they have to stoop. At least our judges are starting to listen. I don't know what the police had done to enhance the Picture, but why was a charge of perverting the course of justice not brought against the them?

Just another example to "widen the gap". And good on Mr Munn for fighting - Wish I’d done the same 2 years ago.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

From what I saw on a news article or documentary (I cannot remember where or when) the "enhancing" of the photo is standard practice, and results from the limitations of using a single film speed that has to cope with all lighting conditions and state of number plate.

All they do is to vary the brightness and contrast in order to make the number readable, and is exactly what happens when you send a film to the processors for printing out a set of 6x4s. The only difference is that the 6x4 printing machine automatically does this across the whole frame, while the Gatso photo is enhanced just on the number plate area.

If they didn't do this then in really bright light (sun directly on plate) then the plate would be burnt out, and it allows dirty plates (which effectively reduces the contrast) to be read by enhancing the contrast.

I don't consider this in itself to be an illegal or questionable thing to do - the information is still on the negative, they are just revealing what is there. If they were accused of faking the number, then that would be a different matter altogether...

I'd heard that it was illegal for them to digitally enhance film images, but (assumption on my part) normal photographic techniques were above board. If the images went through Photoshop in this case then wherever I heard/read that has got it wrong, but I notice that it doesn't actually say how the photos were enhanced. Maybe they were done in a dark room rather than a computer, and those techniques have been around for 100+ years so it's hard to see how anyone can object.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

I believe that for efficiency purposes that the films are scanned, and then only brightness/contrast type adjustments made electronically - the tool used doesn't allow for content editing or other photoshop type manipulation. Doing it in a darkroom/processing machine would be much too time consuming, as each one is different. In the electronic version the operator has to simply select the number plate and trigger a photoshop auto levels and auto contrast type command. If necessary the same settings could be applied to the printing machine to get the same result photographically, so I do not consider it to be editing.

The distinction is surely between enhancing the existing image so that the plate can be read, which is fine because the image itself is unchanged with regards to content, and editing the image to create a fundamentally different image which is illegal and got a traffic warden into big trouble when he did it by altering the date to give the impression that parking restrictions were in place when they were not.

I think the most important issue is......

"Some people feel it is a form of taxation which is turning law-abiding citizens, such as yourself, into criminals. It is not a very satisfactory state of affairs."

This is from a Judge. There must be some mileage to be had from this

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Speed camera policy Kills

Seems reasonable. I never really understood the supposed ban on digital enhancement since it's nothing that couldn't be acheived with a bit of dodging or burning in as necessary. So if it would be okay in principle in a dark room there's no logical reason for it not to be done on a computer. In practice it doesn't make any difference so they might as well be cost effective about it. That was what I was trying to get across before, but reading it back I made a pigs ear of it.


Yes, I think wherever it was I came across the thing about no digital enhancement should probably have said "no digital manipulation". The question is when does enhancement become manipulation? I've seen some long debates on these lines on a photographic forum. IIRC it was a National Geographic cover that had been composited out of two images (IIRC foreground and background came from two different photos but had been made to look like a single image, and done very well indeed), and the purists felt that if it wasn't exactly what was there it doesn't count as proper photography. Others, including me, didn't care how it was done if it was still a good image, providing it wasn't unrealistic. Needless to say I have a totally different opinion when it comes to scamera photos, though if the manipulation is as lame as the effort that got the parking mob into trouble maybe we don't need to worry.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

Yes, the problems would really start if the SCPs employed image manipulation specialists. The average person hasn't got a chance of creating a really effective montage, because it is a very skilled task to create them properly, but with the photo editing tools available most serious photo enthusiasts could probably do the job. There are digital signature technologies that can be embedded into the image itself that will ensure that the image hasn't been altered, and verification techniques that will ensure that images loaded into a system are unaltered since being captured (so for example a photo cannot be edited and loaded back onto a camera card as if it was taken by the camera) - once in the system manipulation can take place to produce an enhanced print, but such changes are saved as deltas that are always re-applied to the original image, thus ensuring the original image is retained.

The question is: are they using these technologies, or is there scope for image faking? Given the pressures that SCPs will be under to maintain an income flow when all drivers know where the traps are, I would hope that secure systems are in place, but given what I have seen of most public service IT systems I have little confidence that this is the case.

And there was that recent thread about the case in Sydney where the local scammers couldn't prove that digitally captured images hadn't been tampered with, or even provide someone to explain how the measures that are supposed to prevent tampering actually worked. So much for technology .

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

Perhaps this is just the type of case that needs appealing for as the judge said, the camera is very rarely wrong despite the pictures being enhanced.
I think that this is something of a red herring, as the wrong question was asked for surely the prosecution, if pushed must be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the enhancement process or any other form of intervention, human or electronic, is guaranteed to be error free be it intentional or otherwise.

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Never have so few been able to so badly effect the lives of so many.

I thought there was a case some years ago where the Police were increasing the size of the photo and it was found that such an act is considered tampering with evidence. I'll try and dig it out.

I'M fighting the ame sort of c**p to accused of doing 39 in 30 at 04:30 in morning !
you are all welcome to attend second hearing on thursday 22nd sept 2005 at 0945, at plymouth magistrates court for the fun

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Brian of Plymouth
When will the government realise , that to err is only human, to be perfect is to be GOD.