New camera systems detecting fake licence plates trialled in South-East England
29 September 2026
BBC Panorama reveals that thousands of illegal registration plates on cars and other vehicles have been detected by a new camera system currently being tested on motorways in south-east England.
Cloned plates
These are illegally made copies of existing registration plates, which dupe automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) systems and often result in innocent motorists receiving penalties or being arrested for vehicular crimes committed by another person.
Ghost plates
Ghost plates show correct details for the vehicle but are made of reflective materials, such as plastic, which are difficult or impossible for most ANPR cameras to recognise.
The UK has one of the largest ANPR network worldwide, with 14,000 sites capturing 100 million number plates each day. Former senior counter-terrorism officer Tony Porter told the BBC that cloned and ghost plates interfering with these systems undermine the police’s ability to track criminals. He said, “The police need an effective ANPR system that doesn't have weaknesses and doesn't put the public at risk”.
He also noted that while passports have security features such as watermarks and electronic ID chips, "we tolerate a £10 number plate with no security mechanism on it".
In the UK, there are more than 34,000 businesses registered with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) to supply number plates and anyone can currently become a registered number-plate supplier by filling in an online form and paying a one-off fee.
Undercover investigators for BBC Panorama also noted how “easy and cheap” it is to buy plates with no background checks. Secretly filming at a market in Essex, two out of three businesses offered ghost plates which they said could help avoid cameras policing London's Ultra-Low Emission.
One business allowed investigators to buy a licence plate without asking for either ID or proof that they were allowed to use the registration - both of which are required by law.
Instead, they handed over £40 in cash in exchange for a brand-new number plate.
Justin Madders, the minister in charge of UK vehicle registration told the BBC that a national plan has now been instigated to understand how widespread the problem of illegal number plates is and what can be done about it.
ANPR technology provider MAV Systems has also been testing a new camera capable of identifying and reading ghost plates. At one test site near the Dartford Crossing, the camera has recorded an average of more than 1,000 ghost plates a day over several months.
Two other sites have been running for almost two years. The first, located near the M25, has seen detections rise from 1,000 per day to nearly 2,000 per day. At the other, located near the Eurotunnel at Folkestone, the system is flagging more than 400 ghost plates every day.
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