“In the first eight minutes of the new system being turned on last week, a licence and registration check conducted while police were stopped at a traffic light in Hobart resulted in a significant drug bust,” The Mercury reports. “And as a police car sat at a service station filling up, one of the officers entered the details of another car in the driveway and found it was unregistered.”
“In just 10 days of operation 167 unregistered vehicles have been found and 107 disqualified or unregistered drivers caught,” The Mercury reports.
The iPhone’s “camera is able to take a picture of a vehicle and within seconds relay the information back to a database of unregistered vehicles and unlicensed and disqualified drivers,” The Mercury reports. “It cuts out the arduous task of officers having to contact Radio Dispatch Services to do the check for them. It also has the ability to search for outstanding warrants and other offenses. The display unit also tracks a police car’s movements, logs jobs for the officers and provides GPS navigation.”
The Mercury reports, “But the system is not limited to the police cars, with a purpose-built iPhone application able to give officers the same information on police-issued iPhones… Acting Commissioner Darren Hine said the technology was an invaluable tool.”
Full article here.
Sounds a bit like Britain’s many portable ANPR systems. Except you get to play a game on it at lunchtime.
But here in America, it would get tossed out of court. Can’t go snooping for suspects, got to catch them in the act. Didn’t say it’s right, just the way it is…
The Man? There’s an app for that!
Instead of a ruggedized laptop taking up room in the squad. Interesting.
Then Maobama and friends will let them all off. Unless they are hard working successful business people. Then they will crucify them…… Thus US is doomed with this bunch of corrupt buffoons running things. At least I have my Apple products.
@ShadowOfDoubt
Next time you see an cop car at a 7/11, ask the officer he they had ever ran the license plate of the car in the same parking lot, even if no real suspicious overt “act” had been observed by the officer.
One only has to watch the tv show cops to see that a patrol car can radio dispatch and run the license plate to see if registration of car is up to date and who the car is registered to and if there are any outstanding tickets or warrants for that person. If there are, the cop will pull them over.
@ shadowofdoubt
If the item being checked (such as license plate) is in plain sight (as it would be on a public road, car park, filling station etc) then there is no legal obstruction to checking it up. If the check reveals other information that requires a followup then probable cause is established and further searches/questions/arrests/etc can be carried out.
Larry
What part of Tasmania or Aussie do you not understand?
Where can I download this app?
The police department in Dayton, Ohio recently got license plate readers that mount on some of their cruisers. They automatically scan the plates of passing cars and feed the info into a database to check for any issues.
Here is an article, and the second link has a video of how they work. The idea of video cameras on every corner kind of bothers me, but I’m all for this technology.
http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/dayton-news/police-cruiser-cameras-raise-civil-liberty-concerns-261587.html
http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/license-scanners-in-police-cruisers-254564.html
Reminds me of James Bond movies. How many other phones can do that?
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Having worked in Australia, I can say that when it comes to checking many offences, particularly drunk driving, just driving is probable cause for testing.
@ ShadowOfDoubt
As others have said, this isn’t the USA. Rules are different . Cope with it!
Can your phone and your network do that?
I for one despise the notion that the government randomly checks on it’s citizens to see if they may be violating the law. That is the beginning of total tyranny. With technology evolving there will be no privacy at all. No government can be trusted with such powers.
@Larry:
Uh, you think the Cheyney/Bush governments weren’t corrupt? I love the Republicans who say they want less government then proceed to spend their lives in government and have their pals make fortunes off gouging the government.
@scott,
they were absolutely no where near as corrupt as the scum that is in office now. thank goodness we have macs to keep our minds off of the horror show going on in washington d.c. stop comparing what is going on with bush. no comparison. maobama sucks the big one and that is a massive understatement. these people want to destroy the US. it’s like every time a muslim terrorist blows something up you liberals start bashing christians. it’s sick.
iphones rock.
@Sir Gill Bates,
Here in Philly they are working on putting cameras on telephone poles in high crime areas. The only problem is that the drug dealers keep shooting them out.
@ Cubert,
Sounds like the city needs to have one of those gun buy back programs so the criminals will be disarmed. They are really effective; just ask any of the anti-gun crowd.
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The government in power is the corrupt government.
When the other guys get back in it will be their turn to be corrupt.
If you don’t like it just wait. Things will change.
Just wait till Apple’s tablet comes out, assuming Apple is smart enough to put a camera in that thing.
(ability for a tablet to scan credit cards and bar codes? Yea, they’ll put it in there.)
Ha ha. Looking at the tone of some of the recent comments here, it’s clear that Apple is indeed becoming a mainstream product! All kinds of freaks are coming out of the woodwork.
Mark you are an idiot. I didn’t like GW Bush or Obama. You are these people. Stop with the racial undertones and get a life! You are bashing so called non Christians. Guilt of the same attitude you just accused others of. It’s sick.
@ Mark, Scott et al.
Take your political posturing and shove it.
This is a discussion forum on Macs – period.
Ha, what a laugh.
“In just 10 days of operation 167 unregistered vehicles have been found and 107 disqualified or unregistered drivers caught.”
There are not that many people in Tassie and catching them means nothing. This is simply another attempt at trying to, as they “put the brakes on the state’s road toll.”
They can throw all the technology they can towards that task but as many Aussies have told me they have a “healthy disregard for the law” over here, so it won’t make a difference…. unless of course they decided to try something like (gasp) education but hey Australians have an even greater distain for education than they do for the law.
I was crossing at a corner the other day, you know the ones with the lights signaling when a pedestrian is allowed to cross. I started to cross but of course I checked (you have to check here or end up dead). As was not so unusual a car cut me off, real close almost ran over my foot. Then a second car decided to cut me off… and it was a police car. I thought for a moment he was going to go after the first car (as would happen in any civilized society) but no, the two happily drove on their way.
Giving way to pedestrians here is something they do.. from time to time. I am astonished when they do it, especially at a cross walk.