Cameras in cars to catch toll cheaters (UK)

Camera spies in million cars to trap toll cheats
By Ben Webster, Transport Correspondent

www.timesonline.co.uk

CARS will spy on each other to catch drivers trying to evade road tolls
under a scheme being proposed to enforce nationwide congestion
charging. More than a million vehicles would be fitted with cameras to
photograph the numberplates of those who failed to pay.

The Government is planning a "pay-as-you-drive" system under which
fuel duty and road tax could be replaced by tolls for each mile
travelled.

The rates would vary according to the level of congestion, with drivers
paying =A31.34 [$2.40] a mile on the busiest routes but only 2p a mile
on quiet roads. A satellite tracking device in each vehicle would
monitor its movements to ensure that the appropriate rate was being
deducted from the driver's pre-paid account; but ministers have
acknowledged that concerns over privacy remain a significant stumbling
block.

A Department for Transport (DfT) feasibility study last year concluded:
"The management and handling of such data inevitably gives rise to
concerns about privacy." It said that a "sizeable minority" of
the population had "strongly held beliefs on the subject".

Motoring groups liken the system to having Big Brother sat in the
passenger seat, watching where each driver goes. But a team of
Cambridge University scientists has designed a way to enforce road
tolls that does not require records to be kept of every driver's
movements.

At least 10 per cent of cars, including more than a million police and
local authority vehicles, would be equipped with cameras capable of
identifying numberplates.

The "spy cars" would use radio signals to check whether the car
driving in front had paid the toll for the road on which they were
travelling.

If the spy car failed to detect a digital receipt, it would photograph
the numberplate and store the image, together with the location and
time, on an onboard computer. The data would then be transmitted to one
of the roadside receivers that would be positioned every few miles
across the network.

The enforcement authority would be likely to receive several reports
about the same driver, allowing it to build up a convincing body of
evidence of evasion before issuing a penalty. A single detection would
probably be ignored as it could be the result of a technical error. The
authority could decide to take action only when it received five or
more reports from different spy cars about the same vehicle.

Robert Harle, research associate at Cambridge University's Computer
Laboratory, said: "Privacy would be maintained for all law-abiding
motorists because the system would identify only those drivers who had
failed to pay."

Speaking at a Cambridge-MIT Institute conference last week, Mr Harle
said: "People could pay anonymously for their journeys and the
Government would not know where they had travelled. Rather than Big
Brother, we would have peer-to-peer security, with cars checking on
each other."

While the detection system would operate automatically without the
driver's involvement, Mr Harle acknowledged that incentives would be
needed to persuade private motorists to have it fitted to their cars.
He said that the computer at the heart of the system could be adapted
to include other functions, say, playing DVDs or providing satellite
navigation. "There will be plenty of volunteers when drivers realise
all the other benefits," he said.

> The Government is planning a "pay-as-you-drive" system under which
> fuel duty and road tax could be replaced by tolls for each mile
> travelled.

Um...

No.