Challenging ANPR

RNZ reports that the police's use of automated number plate recognition (ANPR) is finally being challenged in court:

Police use of footage from high-tech automated number plate recognition cameras is being challenged in court by defendants.

At least 5000 cameras in two private networks provide footage of vehicle licence plates that police use to prosecute people.

At the heart of the unprecedented legal challenges is that this amounts to use of a tracking device without a warrant, in breach of search and surveillance laws. Another challenge is that it is in breach of the Privacy Act and the Bill of Rights.

There are at least two court cases, but suppressions mean details cannot be reported.

This seems pretty open and shut. On BORA grounds, using ANPR to locate someone or track their movements clearly interferes with a reasonable expectation of privacy (in that we do not expect our movements to be thus tracked without justification), and thus constitutes a "search". As for a tracking device, the definition is very broad: it means "a device that may be used to help ascertain, by electronic or other means... the location of a thing or a person [but] does not include a vehicle or other means of transport, such as a boat or helicopter". The fact that following someone with a car needed to be excluded tells you that the definition covers everything else which serves this function, irrespective of technological specifics. And there's a clear parallel here with interception devices, which means "any electronic, mechanical, electromagnetic, optical, or electro-optical instrument, apparatus, equipment, or other device that is used or is capable of being used to intercept or record a private communication (including a telecommunication)". While this covers physical bugs, it also covers phone and internet taps, which are done at the exchange or ISP, using computers and software. The upshot: an ANPR camera is a "device", as are the computers and databases which store the information and allow police to search it. Which makes ANPR a "tracking device", which in turn makes it a "surveillance device", which in turn means its use by police requires a surveillance warrant. And that does not seem unreasonable at all: police get such warrants all the time, and it means they need to convince a judge that there are actual grounds and an actual offence, rather than just snooping for the sake of it. The police already accept this for "real-time" tracking; they just pretend that a time lag of a few seconds makes it "historic".

Of course, the police are not going to accept being told what to do by mere judges. They'll fight this all the way to the supreme Court, and if they lose there, get the government to change the law and legalise everything they've done. Because that's how things actually work in this country. The rule of law? Not when it comes to the police.