'The Register has noted that "in theory a system could be organised in such a way that records of law-abiding drivers weren't generated at all, but that hasn't been the way things have panned out.'
The problem here is not ANPR. The problem here is the application of section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, a law that is, in my opinion, not sufficiently circumscribed. A law that was also deemed illegal by the European Court of Human Rights. That same law can be used to stop and search anybody for any reason whatsoever, ANPR or not. The solution is to fix the law to prevent abuse, not to remove ANPR leading to potentially, and in my opinion, more dangerous roads.
The point is that the harder it is to do something, the less likely it will be done.
If you have to post officers throughout a metro and distribute lists of plates to look out for, you have to contend with
1) The limited number of officers you can pull off of other police duties
2) The limited amount of space in each officer's head to keep that list of plates
3) The limited amount of focus each officer can give to the task of checking each plate that passes by
This means that you'll either put out APBs for only the most important cases, or you'll move more manpower from other police duties to surveillance. There's a natural limiter in play.
On the other hand, if you have your tireless friend whose powers of omniscience and perfect recall are only limited by the number of installed cameras in the city and hard drives in his array; you'll put out APBs for any case you feel like. Your friend will watch for all of them, 24/7/365.
Because you don't need assign more manpower to watch for more plates, there is practically no upper bound to your ability to track persons of interest [0] within your city.
I agree that improperly vague laws are a pox on all civil societies, but there's much more to this case than the Terrorism Act. The vast, inhuman ability of Those In Power to cheaply and easily surveil vast numbers of people is an issue that's no less important.
'The Register has noted that "in theory a system could be organised in such a way that records of law-abiding drivers weren't generated at all, but that hasn't been the way things have panned out.'
The problem here is not ANPR. The problem here is the application of section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, a law that is, in my opinion, not sufficiently circumscribed. A law that was also deemed illegal by the European Court of Human Rights. That same law can be used to stop and search anybody for any reason whatsoever, ANPR or not. The solution is to fix the law to prevent abuse, not to remove ANPR leading to potentially, and in my opinion, more dangerous roads.
Here's a list of other abusive applications of this law that do not involve ANPR: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_Act_2000#Section_44_2