Police intend to map millions of car journeys and keep them on a national database for five years. Roadside cameras across the country will capture the exact movements of 50million licence plates every day.Officers have been encouraged to 'fully and strategically exploit' the database to reconstruct the whereabouts of drivers despite growing concerns from civil rights groups.
The expansion of the database, which currently logs the routes of 10million motorists a day, has been hailed by the Home Office as a positive move to help police investigate a wide range of crimes from petty offences to counter-terrorism.
But questions will be raised about the length of time details are being kept on file and the apparent lack of guidance about who might be allowed access to the information. The operation uses automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras to 'read' the time and location of all vehicles on the road.
Thousands of CCTV cameras across the country have been converted to read ANPR data, capturing people's movements in cars on motorways, main roads, airports and town centres. (Daily Mail)
