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Police to use networked cameras to monitor road users

ANPR (Automated Number Plate Recognition) camera.

Victorian police plan to use a network of hundreds of on-road cameras to spy on errant drivers, bikies, and suspected terrorists.

Victoria's 220 highway patrol cars would have cameras fitted, at a cost of $86 million, and feed vision, live, to a central intelligence base. The idea is recommended in a $115,000 report on a trial of automated numberplate recognition cameras.

The 88-page report by Deloitte says the ANPR cameras would save lives by reducing numbers of dangerous drivers.

Linking the cameras to a central unit sharing, sorting and storing footage could also help police track vehicles associated with known terrorists, outlaw bikies, burglars, sex offenders and arsonists, it says.

ANPR cameras can scan and record thousands of numberplates a minute.

The cameras, which can scan and record thousands of numberplates a minute and check them against vehicle, criminal and sheriff's office records, could gather intelligence on "persons of interest" and identify patterns of behaviour and relationships.

Lisa Beechey, for Victoria Police, said the report, released to News Corp Australia under Freedom of Information, showed how ANPR technology could be used, and the force was working on a package to put to the Victorian State Government.

She said: "We are looking at an independent research project to focus on the detection, enforcement and deterrence benefits of this technology." The force would then be in a position to explore funding.

The report warns that Victoria's failure to formally adopt ANPR technology - all other states have done so - is hampering law enforcement and efforts to cut the road toll.

Deloitte says the force lacks an advanced intelligence capacity to find vehicles of interest, and correlate their move-ments, from among hundreds of thousands of numberplates, times and places that would be captured daily.

It recommends a staged rollout, so the required infrastructure can be built and any necessary changes to privacy laws can be debated.

VicRoads estimates 38,000 unlicensed drivers take to the state's roads every day, and on average one is involved in a fatal crash every fortnight.

If the cameras were fitted to all 220 highway patrol cars, Deloitte estimates an additional 120,000 unregistered cars a year and nearly 66,000 dodgy drivers would be caught.

Deloitte found each of five pilot ANPR units fitted to police cars was detecting an average of 53 unregistered vehicles and 33 unlicensed, disqualified or suspended drivers a month, compared with just seven vehicles and 14 drivers for regular highway patrols.

They scanned more than four million numberplates in the nine months to last October, detecting 84,000 unlicensed drivers and 53,000 unregistered vehicles.