ANPR, DVLA and Perverse Incentives
Happy Monday to you all.
Non-flood related news… From Kable, “An NAO report has said the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency should consider using automatic number plate recognition to estimate the level of vehicle tax evasion. The report says that despite receiving many plaudits for its electronic vehicle licensing (EVL) system, which enables customers to pay vehicle excise duty (VED) and obtain a licence online, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency has experienced a significant rise in tax evasion.”
What does HMG want from ANPR? If they want to use it to catch car thieves or monitor serious organised crime, they should use it for that and only that. Then people will support it and comply with it.
If HMG wants to use it to beat people up on taxes, people will dislike it and work to defeat it. Then it won’t be fit for purpose for the more important tasks that ANPR is most appropriate for.
July 23rd, 2007 at 7:29 pm
Well, this is one of those things that shows the truth of what privacy advocates warn about when they use the term “function creep” in objecting to new initiatives.
wg
July 25th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
Depending on how joined-up the ANPR systems are, between varous regional police services, then if my number plate was recognised in Oxford at time T, and recognised again in Edinburgh at time (T + 4 hours), then it’s a dead cert that some significant element of my journey involved me obeying the notional (as dictated by road, weather and traffic conditions), rather than national, speed limit.
Of course, it would then be down to the set of police services on my route to determine among themselves which (and indeed, how many) of them would want to land 3 penalty points and a 60 pound fine, or worse, on me…
August 2nd, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Or, responding to the last post, it means someone has cloned my number plate!
This is getting more common, the law abiding citizen has to answer awkward questions because of someone else taking liberties.