Vehicle Number Plates: Automatic Number Plate Recognition

(asked on 24th March 2025) - View Source

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if she will make an estimate of the number of ghost plates in circulation.


Answered by
Lilian Greenwood Portrait
Lilian Greenwood
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
This question was answered on 27th March 2025

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency is working with the National Police Chiefs’ Council, various police forces and Trading Standards in relation to the supply and use of illegal number plates as well as number plates with raised characters, commonly known as ‘4D plates’. Some 4D plates can also be described as ‘ghost’ plates where the characters are constructed from materials that are unable to be read by infrared Automatic Number Plate Recognition systems. Work is currently ongoing to quantify the number of illegal plates that may be in circulation, including ‘ghost’ plates.

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