Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the reliability of ANPR data in (a) preventing and (b) detecting (i) road traffic and (ii) wider criminal offences.

ANPR is a valuable tool to help the police tackle crime and keep the road safe. We keep the effectiveness of police and law enforcement use of ANPR under regular review, to ensure it remains a robust tool for identifying vehicles of interest to the police and drivers who break the law. Reads in the National ANPR Service are usually accompanied by a close-up image of the number plate (plate patch) and an overview image of the vehicle to enable users to corroborate the data.