Daily Archives: October 26, 2009


Paul Lewis and Rob Evans write in the Guardian about police use of the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) database to track vehicles seen at public protests: Another protester, an IT manager who only wants to be known as John for fear of police retribution, said he was stopped more than 25 times in two and half years after a “protester” marker was placed against his Mercedes SUV. He said police were giving him inconsistent explanations for the stops. “I heard every excuse under the sun: ‘We’ve heard reports of suspicious vehicles in the area’ or ‘We’re keeping an eye on high value vehicles moving through the area,'” he said. “One or two officers would be a bit more honest and say: ‘Your number plate has flagged up on our system, we don’t know why.’ This was happening all over the country.” He finally decided to complain after a police […]

Activists repeatedly stopped and searched as police officers ‘mark’ cars