Police in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia have just completed a trial of license plate recognition technology and are planning a widespread rollout of the technology in Vancouver. It consists of a camera mounted atop a police car that looks up license plates, checks them against a database and alerts the cop at the wheel if the car is "suspicious". The technology can look up about 3000 plates an hour and they apparently find that they are overwhelmed with the number that turn up as being suspicious - about one in fifty. In my opinion, this technology will no doubt be used in the future in conjunction with speed and red light cameras to catch criminals more quickly.