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SNEAKY ANTI-TERROR CAMERAS USED IN WAR ON THE MOTORIST

Wednesday March 10,2010
By John Ingham

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TECHNOLOGY to fight terrorists is being used by “town hall Stasi” to hike parking fines and rake in cash from motorists, the Tories said yesterday.

Councils routinely use Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology to clamp down on parking offences, they claim.

The device scans 3,000 vehicles an hour and cross-checks in seconds with police, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and insurance databases.

This allows parking tickets to be issued by computer.

Minister for Security and Counter-Terrorism Lord West said the technology is for fighting serious crime. In a parliamentary written answer, he told how it is “used by police forces for intelligence-led policing and investigative purposes”.

Shadow Communities Minister Stewart Jackson said councils are using “spy technology” to penalise motorists for “minor breaches” of parking rules.

“This is yet another sign of the march of the town hall Stasi under Labour,” he said.

“CCTV has a role to catch criminals, but it will lose public support if it is being used to create a surveillance state.”

In a Parliamentary written answer, Transport Minister Sadiq Khan said Department for Transport records show councils in Nottingham, Hackney, Bournemouth and Basildon have used or still use the technology for parking enforcement. He said it helped “assist the visual identification of vehicles when the evidence is reviewed”.

Director of Big Brother Watch Alex Deane, which campaigns against the surveillance society, said: “This confirms what every driver will have suspected – that ANPR cameras are about revenue raising, not law enforcement. This sneaky network is really just another tax.”

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A Local Government Association spokesman said: “If people park illegally and drive in bus lanes they block traffic, cause accidents and stop emergency vehicles getting through. ANPR can be an efficient way of using council taxpayers’ money to prevent people driving illegally.”

A Transport Department spokesman said: “Using the cameras is up to each council.”

AA president Edmund King said: “Technology takes no account of common sense. A motorist could be in a bus lane after pulling over to let an emergency police vehicle with blue flashing lights go past.”

John Spartan, you are fined one credit for violation of the verbal morality statute.

This would seem to be their ideal outcome.

the people who warned abut the mis-use of the surveillance system when it was being installed, and were called fearmongers then, must really be laughing now.
Not the Great British Public, who seem unable to grasp anything except "'enders" or "corrie"