Cops hold 500 MILLION pictures of Scots motorists taken by secret ‘spy’ cameras

Cops hold 500 MILLION pictures of Scots motorists taken by secret ‘spy’ cameras

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POLICE possess nearly half a billion photos of Scots drivers taken by secretive cameras, it has emerged.

Hundreds of millions of images of motoryts across Scotland have been captured by Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology.

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Police Scotland has nearly 500million images of drivers in Scotland and their vehiclesCredit: Alamy
The huge collection of pictures are captured by Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras

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The huge collection of pictures are captured by Automatic Number Plate Recognition camerasCredit: Alamy

The cameras were originally set up to thwart organised crime and terrorism.

But most of the pictures that Police Scotland has collected are of innocent drivers.

The massive cache amounts to 150 photos of each of Scotland’s motorists going about their business.

Data obtained by The Mail on Sunday found that a total of 478,966,518 ANPR images were held by Police Scotland on one day last month.

This was an increase of 26 million compared to last year.

The huge number of ANPR images equates to 15 photos being taken every second across Scotland.

Campaigners have also voiced concerns over the advancing tech lacking regulation.

Politicians have also called for old photos that are not relevant to criminality to be destroyed.

Most read in The Scottish Sun

Jake Hurfurt, head of investigations at Big Brother Watch, said: “This level of surveillance has no place in a democratic society. ANPR being a fact of everyday life, when it started out in a counterterror context, is a prime example of mission creep in an area dangerously lacking in regulation.

“This shows why we need to fight to defend our privacy rights at every turn. We run the risk of quietly sliding towards a surveillance state.”

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Scottish Liberal Democrat justice spokesman, Liam McArthur, said: “Police Scotland is supposed to ensure that old data that doesn’t relate to a crime should be destroyed. The surveillance camera commissioner is right to warn that this technology is advancing at a rapid rate.”

Cops refuse to reveal the locations of the advanced cameras.

A Police Scotland spokesperson said: “We use ANPR technology to help detect, deter and disrupt criminality, including tackling organised crime groups and terrorists.

“It is also useful in tracking stolen vehicles and helping to trace those which have been reported missing.”

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