Safety in numbers
afety in numbers
Number plate theft and numberplate cloning poses a threat to UK motorists and their licenses. James Newell looks at number plate security in the UK.
Number plate crime in the UK has been increasing steadily in the past few years. With the advent of number plate cloning and number plate theft ; motorists are now unsure of the security not only of the number plate system, but the actual number plates themselves.
Secureplate
Secureplate is the first example of a number plate which is tamper proof. Attempting to steal a secureplate number plate from a vehicle actually destroys the number plate itself and thus renders it useless to the criminal.
Although in it’s early stages, secureplate represents a sizeable shift in number plate security and helping to cut down number plate theft.
Secure fixings
Secondary to SecurePlate are secure number plate fixings. These are, in essence, fixings which cannot be removed once put in place.
The thinking behind secure fixings is that a number plate rarely if ever has to be removed from a vehicle- so by making the fixings one-use only products you can help deter number plate thieves.
Number plate cloning
Far harder to trace and resolve is number plate cloning. Number plate cloning involves criminals creating a set of number plates identical to those on your vehicle and using them to “mask” the identity of their own vehicle.
Number plate cloning has been a bugbear of the police for the past few years and in some counties has in fact doubled.
Number plate recognition
At the basis of most number plate crime is number plate recognition. Number plate recognition allows the police and the dvla to track vehicles and administer fines accordingly.
As number plates are stolen or cloned, the relevance of ANPR (automatic number plate recognition) comes into question as it seems all to easy to disguise the identity of your vehicle.
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