Big Brother is filling up your car
A couple of weeke ago a Computing reader wrote to the editor:
"Mike Byrne is concerned that he might one day have to present his ID card when buying petrol. He need not worry - this is not necessary. At Birchhanger Green services on the M11 I recently observed a notice that all registration numbers are checked against the Police National Computer (PNC) before the pump is enabled - and that this information will be retained."
Interesting.
Private sector bodies are not meant to have access to the PNC – indeed to do so would be illegal.
It turns out the system under discussion is known as ANPR – automatic number plate recognition. ANPR was widely installed at petrol stations around the country to prevent petrol theft, according to the National Policing Improvement Agency.
But who runs it? Go to the local force, they said.
So I rang Essex police. They said ANPR systems are run by the petrol companies, not the police, and this wasn't specific to Essex, it was the same all around the country.
Worried, I rang Shell, Esso and BP. All referred me to an organisation called BOSS – the British Oil Security Syndicate.
BOSS director Kevin Eastwood told me that these are all police systems, installed by private contractors.
Turns out that the systems examine a vehicle's licence plate against the PNC WITHOUT giving the cashier, or the petrol company, access to the database.
The driver is then cleared or flagged, and the cashier has the option to enable the pump. The whole process takes a matter of seconds.
Interestingly, it seems that should a car do a runner, the cashier then has the option of adding the record to a police database.
So although Shell / Esso / BP employees cannot access the database, they can add records to it by flagging cars that have done a runner.
It is only the police who can run and can access the database.
I rang Essex police back to confirm this: I'm still waiting for them to get back to me.
So if you ever feel that Big Brother is out to get you, you can take small comfort in the fact that he is a more disorganised and lumbering beast than you might expect.