Automatic License Plate Reader

Technology in the policing field has revolutionized the way police officers go about their job on a daily bases. It is constantly changing for both the good and the bad, and helps to create a safer and better environment for citizens to live in. Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) is just one of the many technologies that have been discovered, and put into place throughout the policing community. Automatic Number Plate Recognition is means of surveillance that uses optical character recognition on various images and makes reading license plate numbers possible. They do this through the use of existing closed-circuit television, road enforcement cameras, or ones specifically designed for the task. This technology has been recently put in place through the use of toll collections. When a car drives through the Speed-Pass lane at the tolls, the camera takes a picture of the license plate, and links the bill directly to that drivers account to make the appropriate payment. Although this is a great use of the technology, the policing field has utilized this technology to look for non-law abiding citizens, and do their best to keep them off the streets. Not everyone feels great about Automatic Number Plate Recognition, and many are concerned about big brother watching them, and fear of government tracking daily movements, as well as error in the technology including misidentification.

Automatic Number Plate Recognition has been around much longer than most can imagine. In 1976 the technology was invented at the Police Scientific Development Branch in the United Kingdom, where it was altered, changed, and put into the industry in 1979. The technology was controversial at the time of its release overseas, however it proved to be an accurate and impressive technology, making its first arrest on an individual when it detected a stolen car in 1981.

Understanding how a technology can often be a very difficult thing, however very interesting in