Officers get ANPR app for their mobile devices
Northamptonshire Police officers can now check all vehicle details instantly using an automatic numberplate recognition (ANPR) app and the camera on their BlackBerry mobile devices. It also records exactly where a car is photographed for future evidence.
Northamptonshire Police officers can now check all vehicle details instantly using an automatic numberplate recognition (ANPR) app and the camera on their BlackBerry mobile devices. It also records exactly where a car is photographed for future evidence.
Northamptonshire police and crime commissioner Adam Simmonds said: This is another way we are using new technology to crack crime. Not long ago we launched an app for peoples mobile phones enabling them to view people the police want to talk to. Both these things will help us better fight crime.
The app works by simply using the camera on the phone to capture a numberplate. This is then fed back to the forces ANPR system which checks the details and issues an alert to the officer if a match is found.
Initially around 200 BlackBerry mobiles will have the ANPR app installed with the intention of rolling this out to approximately 800 devices.
The app also includes the capability to receive alerts from fixed ANPR sites directly to the officers BlackBerry. Specific site groups can be configured so that alerts are sent only to the officers within the direct vicinity of the fixed site that generated the alert.
It is planned to include graphical mapping on the app, allowing site-wide location of devices and geofencing alert control. This will allow officers crossing predefined ANPR boundaries to receive alerts from the fixed site within the new geofence without the need for any re-configuration.