13/05/2011
Devon and Cornwall Police is fighting a legal ruling that could result in the location of thousands of secret speed cameras across the UK being revealed.
The police force says revealing the locations of its 45 automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras would hinder crime fighting.
Some motorists might welcome their locations becoming common knowledge because car insurance costs can sometimes be increased by previous driving offences.
Guardian Government Computing requested the information under Freedom of Information laws and appealed the case to the Information Rights Tribunal (IRT).
The IRT ruled in favour of the publication and ordered that the information be disclosed within 35 days.
More than 10,000 covert cameras record registration numbers and photograph motorists every day.
The information is compiled on a national database to track criminals and has helped to catch a number of offenders.
A Devon and Cornwall Police spokesman said the force was appealing.
"The force continues to take legal advice and is also consulting the Association of Chief Police Officers FOI Central Referral Unit as part of the process," he said.
"The force believes that revealing the exact location of ANPR sites will seriously reduce their impact as a crime-fighting tool in identifying suspects and offenders.
"There is no doubt that since the advent of ANPR the police's ability to proactively target criminals on the road network has increased dramatically.
"Showing a criminal the exact location of a camera will make those cameras easier to avoid and thus make capturing criminals more difficult.
"While the force accepts the need for transparency and the public's right to information whenever possible, revealing the location of covert policing resources goes far and beyond this."
