Flock cameras keep telling police a man who doesn't have a warrant has a warrant

Re:Flock cameras keep telling police a man who doesn't have ... by AlexandrB on Friday May 01, 2026 @02:08PM (#47978002)

The insane practice was allowing "O" and "0" to be used in license plate numbers in the first place. Once you do that, you're stuck dealing with the fallout of trying to distinguish confusing glyphs at distance on a moving vehicle. Many places omit letters that can be confused like this for good reason - e.g. Ontario plates can't have the letters G, I, O, Q, and U.

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Re:Flock cameras keep telling police a man who doesn't have ... by bloak on Friday May 01, 2026 @02:24PM (#47978192)

In the font used for British number plates O and 0 are identical and 1 and I are identical. This link might work for an example:

https://www.dafont.com/uk-number-plate.font?text=OO01+III

Software that handles number plates needs to take account of this. Not all of it does but the glyphs being identical makes it quite clear where the responsibility lies.

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Re:Flock cameras keep telling police a man who doesn't have ... by philipwhiuk on Tuesday May 05, 2026 @05:18AM (#48019973)

Isn't the British solution to only allow certain combinations so this is always unambiguous?

e.g. a prior car we had was FE51 WOC - the O can't be a 0 because of the format requirements. Similarly the 1 can't be an I.

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Re:Flock cameras keep telling police a man who doesn't have ... by harwoodr on Friday May 01, 2026 @02:19PM (#47978147)

My Ontario green plate starts with GV...

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Re:Flock cameras keep telling police a man who doesn't have ... by philipwhiuk on Tuesday May 05, 2026 @05:19AM (#48019987)

I imagine it's unambiguous because it's a specific length so it can ONLY be a G.

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