Friday 9 July 2021

ANPR cameras are beatable, maybe.

There are ANPR cameras on some roads that are connected to an LED screen which flashes up the number of the last vehicle that went past, like at the entrance to supermarket car parks. (I have no idea why, is it just supposed to act as a reminder that Big Brother Is Watching Us? But that's not the point of the story.)

I was stuck in some slow moving traffic recently, and I idly watched the numbers of the cars ahead flash up on the screen, until the screen flashed up the word "MORRISONS".

That's not a registration plate, is it, I thought? Then I noticed a large van, a car or two ahead of me, emblazoned with the company name/logo "MORRISONS" (a local business, not the supermarket, again, that's not the point of the story), so I assume that the camera just reads the first thing it recognises as text, flashes it up and then waits for the next vehicle.

So I suppose what you could do is write something in large capital letters (I assume they are not programmed to recognise lower case) across the front of your boot ("FUCK ANPR" springs to mind) and then enjoy watching that message flash up on all these screens as you drive past.

2 comments:

Scrobs. said...

They're pretty useless.

We have one outside our drive, and nobody in plod bothered to look to see the number plate of the bloody burglar who pinched everything from a dear old neighbour last year.

They said they were put up to stop 'county lines' drug movements.

Bollocks.

James Higham said...

Well, test it out, Mark, and report back to us.