On the 8th May this year Edinburgh Evening News reported that ANPR technology is to be used to crack down on kerb crawlers as part of a new bid to reduce street prostitution in Scotland’s capital city.

According to the Anti- social Behaviour Summary of the Edinburgh City Council, Edinburgh is one of the safest cities in the UK, but too many people still have real concerns about their personal safety. Tackling anti-social behaviour is part of a wider effort to enhance community safety and is central to the overall city vision of improving the quality of life for all.

With a proportion of the £200,000 received from the Scottish Government, the city council plans to invest in Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras. The ANPR cameras will be placed discreetly in prostitution hot-spots and will log all the vehicles that visit them. The information gathered will alert officers to vehicles which frequent the areas, and ultimately help them build up a case against kerb crawlers.

ANPR cameras are already used on a daily basis to police many different scenarios, tracking stolen vehicles, monitoring vehicle activity at ports, and policing large outdoor events for example. It is the flexible nature of this powerful policing tool that means it will continue to develop and be utilised in even more challenging areas of police responsibility.