UK: Traffic CCTV cameras: more surveillance and license to print money?
01 May 2001
Motoring organisations are up in arms about next generation speed cameras and plans to introduce "parking cameras" that have followed new legislation enabling the police to keep some of the revenue raised. Civil liberties concerns about the surveillance technology itself have been overshadowed.
The first speed camera was installed on Britain's roads in 1991 and now there are some 4,300, each costing between £30?40,000. These cameras use Gatsometer speed?detectors (after the Dutch rally?driver Maurice Gatsonides who helped develop the technology in the 1950s) linked to a stand?alone camera that photographs any vehicle exceeding a set?limit.
New technology called "SVDD" (Speed Violation Detection Deterrent) instead uses a linked network of cameras that read vehicle number plates along a measured baseline of up to 500 metres. Each camera records the number plates and precise times that vehicles pass. Number plate records are then matched and an average speed for the vehicle is calculated. If this is above the "trigger" speed, the digital image, which clearly records the number plate and who is driving, together with the date, precise time, location and speed, is transmitted to computers at the driving licensing authority . Speeding fines are sent out automatically to the registered owner of the offending vehicle. The system has the potential to process some 60,000 tickets per?hour.
A private company called Speed Check developed the technology, testing it on British roads between 1993 and 1995. The company received Home Office Type Approval in April 1999 and SVDD cameras are known to be operating on roads in Nottinghamshire and Gloucestershire.
Number plate?recognition based surveillance systems have been used extensively by City of London police since 1997, with all vehicles entering the so?called "ring of steel" around the City checked against police computers. The extent to which the new SVDD technology is compatible with existing systems is not known, but the long?term prospect of a network of interlinked number?plate recognition cameras on Britain's roads clearly has enormous scope for the surveillance and tracking of vehicles.
CCTV cameras are also being planned to enforce congestion charges planned for London in 2003. Motorists who wish to enter central London are to be charged a daily tariff, which must be paid in advance. One?hundred?and?eighty CCTV cameras will take pictures of the number plate of every vehicle entering the central zone, these will be automatically crosschecked and the details of those who have not paid will be recorded. A spokesman for Transport for London, an arm of the new Greater London Authority responsible for operating the cameras, said that they "were keen to help the police with security issues".
The Association of London Government has drawn?up plans to introduce CCTV cameras dealing specifically with parking offences. The new system would be based on operator monitored CCTV cameras who would look for offences where people park illegally for several minutes, perhaps to go to cash machines or even just to work out their location.
CCTV is also used to prosecute people for driving in bus lanes and according to media reports the government is considering using zoom?lens cameras to check tax?discs (which show when a vehicle's annual road tax expires).
Motoring organisations are incensed by the plans. According to the Association of British Drivers:
It is fundamentally wrong for those bodies responsible for setting and enforcing laws to benefit financially from doing so ? it is inevitable that the criminal law will cease to serve the public interest, instead becoming a political tool for raising money.
Statistics exemplifying the huge revenues have been bandied around the media. Apparently, "Britain's most notorious speed camera bags a vehicle every minute...raking in £840,000 per week" and 4.1 million parking tickets were issued in London last year. Most of the income gen