Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR); Red Light Cameras and You!

Automatic number plate recognition is a surveillance method that uses high-tech optical character recognition to read vehicle license plates while they are traveling down the road. You know this a bit better as the traffic enforcement or red-light cameras that take your picture if you cross through an intersection after the light has already turned yellow.

Generally these types of cameras are mounted to poles around intersections and are triggered when someone is speeding, or cars that pass through intersections when the light is red, or cars that cross over double solid lines, or cars in the carpool lane without enough people to qualify for that lane, or cars that are illegally parked and more. A lot of the systems combine a few of these functions in a single camera – for example, cars that speed and cars that go through intersections when the light is red. There are also mobile systems that can be hand-held, vehicle-mounted and even concealed in objects such as trash bins.

These types of cameras can also be used for non-traffic enforcement related activities for mass surveillance of motorists by government agencies; but as things such as Google Earth has taught us all – we are being watched no matter where we are so what does a few more cameras really matter.

People have used many techniques to try to evade ANPR systems. Doing things like spraying substances on their license plates or covering the plates with domed plastic all with marginal results. The ANPR software is incredibly advanced and very hard to trick. If by some miracle an ANPR system cannot read the plate, it will flag the image for attention which automatically sends the images over to human operators who will then take a look to see if they are able to identify the alpha numeric characters. Basically it boils down to – don’t run these lights, you won’t get away with it.

~TeCHS