Buckinghamshire CC ANPR cameras

[John Wilson]

On 10 January 2012 11:47, James Firth <james2 at jfirth.net> wrote:
> Roland Perry wrote:
>> That's essentially the same as the 24-bit hash used by the Highways
>> Agency, which while not unique to every vehicle is plenty good enough
>> as
>> evidence in a murder investigation.
>
> Rather than give the entire feed to the police, surely it is possible to
> obtain a compromise whereby certain hashes can be added to a "watch list".
> Upon matching, the entire car index plate, location etc is revealed to the
> police.
>
> Oversight will then consist of accurate reports by the council/HA etc of the
> number of plates concurrently on the watch list each reporting period.
>
> This at least prevents some enterprising police forces storing the raw feed
> indefinitely.


In the Bucks CC scheme the Council owned and run cameras produce two
data streams. One contains only the hash (it is claimed) and is polled
by the Council's data centre. The other contains the full number plate
data and is polled by Thames Valley Police. There is a reciprocal
arrangement whereby the hash values from the Thames Valley Police
cameras around Aylesbury are sent to the Council. In effect all
traffic management ANPR cameras are also Police ANPR cameras. I'm not
clear on the details of this arrangement but I have an FoI request
pending and fully expect to get a copy of the Memorandum of Agreement
which covers this. This Bucks CC scheme was funded by central
government to the tune of £350,000 for ANPR and CCTV cameras alone
(govt funded the Aylesbury Urban Traffic Management and Control scheme
to the tune of £4m in all). This appears to be seen as a model for
further schemes by the traffic management community. Whist the
location of the Council owned cameras are published the location of
the TVP cameras used by the scheme are not. It's possible an FoI
request to the council might force disclosure but I haven't tried that
yet.

John Wilson