From 2006 Britain will be the first country where every journey by every car will be monitored.
Using a network of cameras that can read every passing number plate, the plan is to build a huge database of vehicle movements so that the police and security services can analyse any journey a driver has made over several years.

The network will incorporate thousands of existing CCTV cameras which are being converted to read number plates automatically night and day to cover motorways, main roads, towns, cities, ports and petrol-station forecourts.
The details of 35 million number-plate “reads” per day will be recorded for at least two years and will include time, date and precise location, with camera sites monitored by global positioning satellites.
If the police and security services can show that a national surveillance operation based on recording car movements can protect the public against criminals and terrorists, there will be a strong political will to do the same with street cameras designed to monitor the flow of human traffic. The Home Office Scientific Development Branch in Hertfordshire is already working on ways of automatically recognising human faces in a crowd by computer.
Via VarnelisThe Independent 1 and 2.
Image from flickr 1984 pool.