The Fight Against Vehicle Cloning

Monday, 9. June 2008

The police are fighting back against vehicle cloning through the use of automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras located in the roadside and in most fuel stations. currently 50 million vehicle movements are recorded by ANPR cameras every day. The new software being tested by officers in Durham will identify when cars with the same number plates are moving at the same time and alert officers. The analytical ability of the software will enable the police to identify a car travelling north on the M1 whilst also on the M50 then alerting the police who can then stop the cars and identify the cloned car. Local authorities are being targeted by gangs of vehicle cloners who can request details of vehicles that the authority either owns or leases under the Freedom of Information Act. The cloners can then select cars similar to the ones they want to clone ie replace their existing number plates with those of the cloned car and just have a set of number plates made up then park wherever they want, speed around at breakneck speed and avoid congestion charges. One suggestion if you are cloned and start to receive parking tickets and speeding tickets is to buy a cherish number plate to replace the actual number plate, then you can prove that you are not responsible for the fines when you receive them.