By Michael Morrah
Criminals - and possibly the rest of us - beware. Police have a new high-tech weapon in their crime-fighting armoury.
It has proved controversial when introduced overseas, especially in Britain where it's sometimes referred to as 'Big Brother', and privacy campaigners argue it carries out surveillance on millions of innocent motorists.
The technology is called automated number plate recognition, or ANPR.
On the roof of an otherwise ordinary white van sit two cameras and antennas, and inside are computers , radios and out-of-sight police databases.
This is the very latest crime-fighting technology.
"What we are looking at is people who have warrants out for their arrest, stolen vehicles, vehicles that have been complained of because of some very major event," says Supt Paula Rose, national road policing manager.
The technology senses number plates and records them, then instantly matches them to a police database.
If a vehicle is wanted for any reason, waiting patrol vehicles give chase.
The cameras photograph every passing vehicle - up to 3000 images an hour, or nearly one a second. As well as the number plate, the location, date, time and sometimes images of the driver and passengers are snapped.
The van is being used to monitor from stationary positions at the moment, but can operate while being driven around car parks and on motorways.
Police say the technology is so efficient it can do the work of 25 police officers and 25 dispatchers at the communications centre by simultaneously conducting registration checks.
More than 20,000 cars are stolen in New Zealand every year. The most popular for thieves is the Nissan Silvia, followed by the Subaru Impreza and the Nissan Skyline.
ANPR will save police time when trying to find stolen cars, but could also be used for counter-terrorism.
"The technology was first developed precisely for that, for national security options and certainly there is a roll that it may play in that arena," says Supt Rose.
ANPR is already in use the UK, US and parts of Australia, but it caused a stir in Britain where the ANPR network logs more than 10 million vehicles everyday. There, database stores more than 7 billion images and keeps them for up to five years.
Civil rights campaigners here say safeguards need to be in place so data isn't kept for long periods.
"From a human rights perspective there is a grave danger that this could be in essence another huge inroad by Big Brother into the private lives of citizens," says Michael Bott, Civil Liberties Council chairman.
But police say innocent citizens have nothing to fear.
"At this stage most of the information is only kept for a relatively short time - just for a few days to a few weeks," says Supt Rose.
Police say the equipment has already proved its worth. A suspect wanted on an aggravated robbery was arrested on just the third day it was used in South Auckland.
A second vehicle is now in use in Wellington, and police want another one before the end of the year.
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