Stansted Airport Parking - Security Measure or Intrusion of Privacy?

[Desmo]

I have to regularly pick up my old man from Stansted airport when he returns from Ireland. At Stansted, they've put in new toll barriers into and out of the car parks. Now I noticed for the first time the other night that it actually reads your numberplate on entry and prints it onto the parking ticket

Now I'd like to know what they do with this information. Can it be used for security purposes? I can't imagine many terrorists turning up in their own cars

Or is it yet another invasion of our privacy? Are they going to keep tabs on me to see how often I visit the airport?

[Will]

It's helpful to your security in a way because it means someone can't nick your car without the ticket you've been handed over. They can also log the times and dates at which the cars come in. Gatwick have been logging number plates for 8 years at least. But Stansted tend to be more anal about security. I guess they can always use it as evidence against you if you happen to make it home in less time that you should or whatever... the way I see it is as soon as you get to an airport your civil liberties are taken from you as you are monitored by 100s of cameras, forced to do things by officious mini nazis with no life or brain, have your safety put at risk owing to wierdos and the armed police, and not forgetting the numpties that think they are so high and mighty that the rules don't apply to them.

Your number plate is no doubt recorded on many cctv cameras all around the place, I guess it means that when you do blow yourself up, they'll be able to say, yup it was a W reg BMW... which is REALLY helpful :/

[kaiowas]

I've seen pay and display car parks where's you have to type in your registration at the pay machine and it's then printed onto the ticket. The reasoning behind it in those circumstances is to prevent people from giving their valid ticket to someone else as they're leaving.

[vix]

Originally Posted by kaiowas

I've seen pay and display car parks where's you have to type in your registration at the pay machine and it's then printed onto the ticket. The reasoning behind it in those circumstances is to prevent people from giving their valid ticket to someone else as they're leaving.

Although a lot of those only take the numbers of your registration, and it doisn't work so well any more as more people have the same numbers on modern cars. (02, 56 etc)

[Pebs]

I'm a bit indifferent to all this really. Even if they are doing it to snoop and collate information about me, what will they use it for? It's unlikely to ever have any impact on my life, who cares really. I'm sure there are 1001 ways they can keep tabs on a person, most of which we don't know about.

I suspect it has more to do with security though. They used to have videos that took pics of the whole front of the car (don't know if the still do) so I give a cheery wave and try not to look guilty

[Pebs]

*pokes Kitten*

Witch!

[Treefrog]

Originally Posted by Pebbles

... I give a cheery wave ...

One finger or two?

I used to carry Bridgit on my shoulders down to Tesco and we'd wave at all the cameras on the way there. She was well chuffed when one of them waved back

But getting back on topic - do they ask you to keep the ticket with you when you leave the car? If so, then that would deter anyone looking to steal a car if they know they will need to pay a penalty if they try and leave without a valid ticket. But if you are required to leave it in the car then I see no deterrant value there at all.