The government is conducting trials of electronic number plates (ENR or EVI)

to prevent cloning of reg plates to evade fines etc etc, and for other more sinister reasons perhaps?

for cars etc...

https://www.dvla.gov...enp_report.ashx

for bikes...

https://www.dvla.gov...Motorcyles.ashx

ANPR works by using cameras.

the EVI won't need a camera to identify a vehicle.

is this a good thing or not?

Discuss...

Any system you invent can be worked around. This one seems really easy to bypass, either by transmitting any info you want from within the car or by hacking the chip in the number plate.

You then go down the route of a hacked car being implicated in a motoring offence, the registered owner gets the letter (and fine), how do you prove you were not with the car and the car was not located where the incident took place?

Camera's aren't perfect. Bad Light, Dirty plates, etc all hinder their usefulness. Something that provides a more reliable method of tracking someone commiting an offence is surely a good thing.

That said, if its electronic, people will find a way of hacking it.

Is it expensive, does it make the lives of the law abiding harder and will it fail to affect the outlaws?

Yes to all 3, so it's ideal for a Con party policy.

On the face of it, all you have to do is read the signals being exchanged between the reader and the numberplate and you should be able to clone the chip. I would imagine it will be cracked pretty quickly!

Extra expense to little effect, I'd have thought.

Is it expensive, does it make the lives of the law abiding harder and will it fail to affect the outlaws?

Yes to all 3, so it's ideal for a Con party policy.

.....Because of course the Blair/Brown government never introduced any expensive authoritarian pointless bureaucracy whatsoever during their reign did they?