Yorkshire Police turn to RIM for Blackberry connectivity to the ANPR (auto number plate recognition) system

West Yorkshire police are working out how to arm bobbies on the beat with links to their local auto number plate recognition (ANPR) system. They want bobbies to have savvy intelligence that can tell law abiding citizens from rule breakers at their fingertips.

By now the national system, which grew out of an existing MI5 ANPR camera network, should have been clocking 35m registration plates a day with cameras placed on roadsides in town centres and major roads throughout the country. Yet the national centre is a mess of wires while police techies boost the system's capacity to 50m spooks a day.

The national ANPR database was due to be fired up in March but will not see life now till mid-summer because the original blue print has been extended, said John Dean, National ANPR co-coordinator for the Association of Chief Police Officers.

The central database will also keep details of peoples' car journeys for five years, said Dean. A limit of two years will apply only to data kept by regional forces.

Paul Friday, director of information systems at West Yorkshire Police, said he had asked RIM, maker of the Blackberry handheld computer given to his coppers, about the technicalities of an ANPR link.

The police have most streets of Bradford covered by ANPR cameras, while Leeds is being wired. "Once that's stable we'll look at taking it onto BlackBerry," said Friday.®

theRegister.co.uk