WA Police Expand ANPR Camera Coverage Across The State

WA Police will have access to new technology which enables them to collect data from vehicle licence plates.

Police will have access to 100 new automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras which will make it easier for law enforcement to trace cars and people associated with them.

The latest Perth briefing

Police Minister Paul Papalia said the ANPR technology will help solve major crimes.

“But also it very much lifts our capability in being able to respond to incidents like terrorism, like major crime, and the system has already been used to solve some very serious crimes.”

“In effect we will be creating a virtual ring of steel around the state, in the coming months we will be growing our number of ANPR’s for the police by 100 cameras.”

But Deputy Police Commissioner Col Blanch denies it will give officers Big Brother like powers.

“The most important thing for police is to use it ethically, to use it in accordance with the law, and we are comfortable with the debate around the comfort of the community for us to be using this technology. It does solve crimes, and I think the community expects that we use technology like this to do that.”

Almost 80 percent of all crimes committed in WA involve a car or vehicle, so the new technology will be critical in improving their data collection.

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