[pp.int.general] Big Brother in NL?

[Andrew Norton]

On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 5:08 AM, Nicolas Sahlqvist <nicco77 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Tracking movements with GPS is so far the most integrity concerning
> alternative suggested so far, but already larger cities in NL measure the
> speed for cars entering and exiting the city, the speed cameras register all
> Dutch licence plates and the same when exiting and calculates if the average
> speed is higher then then speed limit, I bet the police is looking at this
> information to track "criminals" movements too when they feel it is needed.
> http://www.om.nl/onderwerpen/verkeer/english/section_control/
> http://www.airquality.co.uk/reports/cat09/0505171129_Rotterdam_speed_control_zone_Detailed_Assessment.doc

Ah yes, the good old SPECs system. When I did my month's training with
the traffic police in Merseyside (I was training to be an industrial
accident investigator at the time, we had to go to traffic incidents
for practice) they'd just put a specs system up on the M62. From what
I remember, they couldn't access the system for tracking, they
discarded the plates when the last camera in the system was passed,
but this was 2001, so it may have changed since then. (side note, on
that system, they couldn't read the front plate on the 340 I was
driving at the time, as it was mounted under the front bumper)

>
> In Sweden there are road tolls in Stockholm, they are handled via cameras
> filming all license plates and radio boxes that regular commuters can buy
> (motivation: discount on fee) and everything is processed at a IBM
> datacenter in Denmark:
> http://www.sweden.se/eng/Home/Work-live/Government-politics/Reading/Car-tolls-reduce-Stockholm-traffic/
> http://lovetomorrowtoday.com/2009/05/12/ibm-stockholm-build-a-smarter-toll-system/
> http://www.ibm.com/podcasts/howitworks/040207/index.shtml

Theres a toll motorway in the UK similar, and of course there's the
London Congestion Zone (itself a development of the old 'ring of
steel' implimented in the 80s). I don't know personally if it's made
any improvement to London traffic though, as i've only ever driven
there once (I usually took the coach down)

The ANPR cameras are connected to local police stations for
car-flagging, plus they can check tax, insurance, and a bunch of other
things. Some areas even have fleets of cars set up to use ANPR (Essex
has a fleet of Impretza STi and Mitsubishi Evo 8s and 10s for
instance) and liverpools got 30 or so such cars.

As far as vehicle tax, on purchasing a car, it's low in the UK (thats
why a lot of people now buy a car in the Netherlands, or Belgium,
without the tax - as it's pre-tax price is lower - then bring it to
the UK, and pay the smaller tax there) but the yearly tax is quite
high. Don't think I could go back to paying $200 a year for a tax disc
(for contrast, the equivilent tax for my car/land yacht, due next
month, is about $33.45, the same for my civic, or my 3.1 litre
lumina). Also, if they find your car without tax in the UK, they
impound it, and you've got 14 days. If you've not paid by then, it's
either sold at auction or crushed. Same with Insurance. Sometimes
these systems get it wrong -
http://www.thisislancashire.co.uk/news/1169259.police_crushed_my_car_even_though_it_was_insured_dad/

Despite this, taxes have gone up, not down.

> In Germany there is a debate going on about road tax and it would not
> surprise me if they follow the trend with cameras:
> http://www.thelocal.de/national/20091105-23049.html
> This is all motivated by environment issues and the privacy issues tends to
> get forgotten...

The environment is just a nice cover. Really it's about raising money,
and gaining power.

>
> - Nicolas
>   PPI / PPSE member

Andrew