For those who didn’t spot it, this article in yesterday’s Motoring supplement in the Irish Times by Daniel Attwood confirms that plans for an automatic vehical number plate recognition system are already being implemented.
The Local Authority, even in the little they are reported as saying here, contradict themselves.
Dublin City Council Assures motorists that, although it is storing the information gained from the cameras, it is not using it to identify vehicles or drivers. “Average journey times are stored, but not pictures or individual number plates”, it stated.
Questions: Either it is storing the camera information or it isn’t. Which is it? I’m guessing they’re storing it, but not using it at the moment.
Legally, I’d suggest that they’re bound by Data Protection Acts to hand over a copy of any information held on any person whose journeys are recorded by these cameras to that person on their request. According to the report the cameras are on the M1 and on the Malahide Road.
This request will cost about €6. I’ll pay for it, if anyone who reguarly travels those roads would like to get back to me.
Speaking of Data Protection Acts, TJ McIntyre points out that Dublin City Council’s Data Protection Register entry seems to have neglected to tell us that amongst the data they hold will be data relating to individually identifiable vehicle journeys.
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[…] This was the assertion of an entirely new power of the state- the right of the state to know the location of all its citizens running back years and who they had met, spoken to or communicated with. We can see the same right being asserted in the UK at the launch of the Automatic Number Plate Recognition systems, and being implemented, by stealth, here as well. […]