France: New Police Camera Against Stolen Vehicles from Bikes in the Fast Lane

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France: New Police Camera Against Stolen Vehicles

February
2008

  File under Uniformed France
  Author: Mike Werner
  Location: Normandy, France

The French Police have been testing a new digital camera since March 2007. Called LAPI (Lecture automatisée des plaques d'immatriculation - Automatic License Plate Reading) , the new digital camera system is coupled to the national stolen vehicles database.

The LAPI system is mounted on the top of a Police car, and scans the road for traffic. The digital camera works on infrared, so it can also work at night. Any car (or motorcycle) will have its license plate photographed, analyzed, and if stolen, reported within seconds to the Police officer. The cop can then radio ahead and have the driver arrested.

At this moment, the CNIL (the privacy watchdog organization) has allowed 6 cars to test the new gadget over a 2 year period. Currently only 3 cars are equipped, but in the time frame they started the experiment, the Parisian Police have caught between 1 and 4 stolen vehicles per day!

Not only does it report on French stolen cars, it'll also find stolen European cars/motorcycles/trucks.

Not bad....