Police could be forced to axe Big Brother road cameras: Town wins landmark victory over blanket use of number plate 'spies'



Landmark ruling declares ring of cameras around Royston, Herts, was unlawful and excessive

Campaigners say ruling will affect every police force in the country

Police forces say the cameras allow them to track criminals in real time

Police could be forced drastically to scale back their use of ‘Big Brother’ road cameras which record the movements of millions of motorists every day.

In a landmark ruling, the privacy watchdog declared that a ring of cameras installed around the quiet market town of Royston in Hertfordshire was unlawful and excessive.

Privacy campaigners said yesterday’s ruling would affect every police force in the country and would make them carry out a full audit of the automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) system, a network of 10,000 cameras across the UK.



Every day, these record the detailed movements of some 16million motorists. The cameras record the number plate of every vehicle that passes.

Facing the axe: The number of ANPR cameras that monitor the movements of millions of motorists could be cut back after a ruling that deemed them unlawful and excessive

Police say they allow officers to track criminals in real time as they drive around. But critics say the cameras amount to an ‘automated checkpoint system’.

In Royston, police installed seven cameras in 2010 at a cost of £45,000. Cameras operating 24 hours a day on every major road made it impossible for residents to enter or leave the town without their number plates registering on the system.

Details of their movements are collected and stored on a giant database, in effect giving police a full record of all significant car journeys by the town’s 16,000 residents.

But residents campaigned for the cameras to be removed, and privacy groups complained to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

The watchdog ruled that the blanket use of the cameras was excessive and unlawful because it breached the Data Protection Act. Hertfordshire Constabulary was given 90 days to reduce its use of the cameras.

In his judgment, Information Commissioner Christopher Graham condemned the police force for failing to justify the extent of the surveillance.

He said the chief constable had given ‘no satisfactory explanation for his policy of covering the road network’.

Hertfordshire Constabulary had not properly assessed the impact of the cameras on either privacy or crime, the watchdog said.

In its ruling – the first time a police force has been ordered to decrease the level of ANPR use – the watchdog warned that the data could be used for ‘purposes other than those originally intended’ and that there was a risk that it could be unlawfully accessed or released.

Nick Pickles, director of the privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch, said: ‘This sends a clear message that the blanket logging of vehicle movements is not going to be within the law.

‘Every police force in the country is affected by this ruling and must now undertake a comprehensive assessment of their own systems to ensure they are not excessive.

‘The Information Commissioner must now take steps to ensure motorists are not being routinely tracked, wherever they live.’

Residents in Royston, which is on the border of Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire, welcomed the ruling. Grandmother Jane Katsikas, 45, a carer, said: ‘What happened to privacy? People should be able to go about their lives without being filmed or photographed every second.

Information Commissioner Christopher Graham, left, condemned Hertfordshire police for failing to justify the extent of surveillance while Nick Pickles said every police force in the country would be affected by the ruling

‘This is supposed to be a free country. It is just Big Brother gone mad and I’m appalled.’

Last night Hertfordshire Constabulary said it intended to carry on using the cameras – and was developing a ‘privacy impact assessment’ to justify their use.