I lived on the Isle of Man for a few years back in the 90's. The white van would be spotted on the ferry coming over and a small notice in the paper would appear. Everyone hid their TVs for a couple of weeks, until the paper said the van was back on the ferry.

It sounds so farcical now, in our age of ubiquitous surveillance capitalism.

I doubt what you saw was a TV licensing van in 2015. They stopped doing the van stuff in the late 90s / early 2000s.

Even if they could “detect” TV in your house they’d have no way of knowing if it’s a live broadcast or streaming/on demand.

It may have been an OB van or something else.

I know, I think this was always a joke, especially with the yellow liquid.