Hi-tech AI cameras being examined on Britain’s motorways in new crackdown on ghost plates
The Government is testing a new AI registration plate recognition system which can detect illegal ‘ghost’ number plates.
Such registration plates are invisible to traditional automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras and can be used to skirt speed limits and low emission zones, as well as aid criminals in evading detection.
Last year the Daily Mail found as many as one in 15 cars were now feared to be fitted with so-called ‘ghost plates’ and that even official suppliers were selling them.
Britain has one of the largest ANPR camera networks in the world with 14,000 capturing 100million number plates a day, a system which is being exploited by untraceable number plates.
The new AIQ cameras, produced by major ANPR provider MAV Systems, are capable of identifying and reading ghost plates.
At a single test site one camera captured more than 1,000 a day for months near the Dartford Crossing on the River Thames.
Two other test sites, which have run for almost two years, have recorded a combined total of more than 2,000 a day at their sites near the M25 and close to the Eurotunnel in Folkestone.
MAV Systems told the Daily Mail the AIQ camera – a ‘home-grown’ product with software produced in Kent – used sensors and ‘advanced, blended’ infrared technology to detect ghost plates.
New AI number plate recognition cameras are being tested on British roads to tackle previously untraceable ‘ghost’ number plates
A Mail reporter was last year able to buy two sets of 4D ghost number plates, dispatched within days by two separate suppliers despite no checks being carried out to verify car ownership
It uses an ‘AI engine’ and algorithms to ‘make intelligent decisions on-site and send alerts and relevant information’ into enforcement systems.
A spokesman claimed some cameras were processing over 50,000 number plates per day and drawing out ghost number plates for review.
Ghost plates advertised online boasted of so-called 4D raised lettering, which experts said existing road cameras struggled to read properly, last year’s Mail investigation found.
And when Cranfield University researchers tested the Mail’s ghost plates in their lab, they found all but one character on the registration was made of transparent material, meaning those letters appeared blank when photographed in anything other than strong daylight.
Existing cameras use infrared light to recognise number plates in the dark, but the ghost plates also became transparent in these conditions.
Britain’s system is rare in allowing anyone to become an official number plate supplier for a one-off fee of £40 without a background check.
A report by MPs suggested there were an ‘eye-watering’ 34,455 suppliers – four times the number of British petrol stations – and the system was ‘wide open to abuse’.
Among the authorised suppliers were convicted fraudsters and criminals linked to ‘murder, firearms, drugs, robbery and violent assault’, trading standards investigators found.
A camera in use above a motorway. Last year’s Mail investigation found that it was feared up to one in 15 cars now carried a ghost number plate
A new camera in place outside Manchester’s Co-op Live arena. Test cameras are tracking thousands of illegal plates a day, the manufacturer claims
One victim of a crash involving ghost plates was Graham Slinn, 81, who was killed on a pedestrian crossing last year when a car bearing a cloned registration hit him at high speed.
His killer, 20-year-old Cain Byrne, was driving without a licence or insurance and had inhaled nitrous oxide minutes before the crash.
He was found after police examined hours of CCTV footage, with one camera capturing the moment he fitted the illegal plates to his car.
Byrne was jailed for more than 11 years after being convicted of causing death by dangerous driving, driving while disqualified and driving without insurance.
Mr Slinn’s daughter, Nicola Timmis, told BBC Panorama cloned plates were a ‘gateway drug’ which allowed drivers to take more risks.
‘It seems like it’s harmless, but then one thing leads to another, leads to another, and before you know it, it’s somebody dead. It is not a victimless crime.’
Only two number plate suppliers have been prosecuted and removed from the DVLA database since 2020 and just six officers from the agency are responsible for auditing the thousands of entries.
The DVLA said it was ‘cleaning up the register, strengthening compliance and enforcement’ and it continued to work closely with police and Trading Standards to ‘tackle suppliers who break the rules’.
