How Secure Are UK Number Plates? The A66 Tragedy And Number Plate Fraud Examined

How The A66 Tragedy Brought Number Plates Into The Spotlight

According to the Independent Office for Police Conduct, the A66 pursuit began after a vehicle triggered an ANPR camera and was suspected of displaying cloned number plates. Police aborted the chase when the car began travelling the wrong way along the dual carriageway. Moments later, it collided with a police vehicle that had not been involved in the pursuit.

The investigation is ongoing, and nothing here should pre-empt its findings. But the case has brought into the spotlight a question that has been building for years within policing, the Home Office and the motor trade: how secure are British number plates?

A vehicle registration system built on trust

When the DVLA issues them, vehicle registrations are linked to a specific vehicle or kept on a certificate, and logged in a national database. These rights to number plates can only be sold by businesses on the DVLA's Registered Number Plate Supplier list. And number plate buyers are supposed to show proof of identity and entitlement to the registration. 

However, a 2023 Home Office review found that the system was too weak to stop determined fraudsters, with more than 34,000 suppliers operating with no background checks or oversight. The review also found that number plate cloning in England and Wales rose to roughly 13,000 a year, up from about 4,000 in 2018.

Then, of course, comes the physical plate itself. These are printed acrylic panels that must meet the British Standard (BS AU 145E) for reflectivity, durability, and character spacing. However, the issue is that there’s nothing more required in terms of security.

This means there’s no hologram, no laser-etched serial code, no watermark, or anything else that sets it apart physically. As a result, if two sets of plates have the same characters in the same font, there’s no physical way to tell the legitimate one from the copy.

What’s the difference between cloned number plates and ghost plates?

This is an important distinction and one that often catches people out.

A cloned number plate is a copy of a genuine registration, usually taken from a vehicle of the same make, model and colour. The aim is to hide in plain sight, because to an ANPR camera, the cloned car looks legitimate. As a result, any speeding fines, congestion charges, or worse end up in an innocent motorist’s letterbox.

Ghost number plates, on the other hand, don’t steal an identity. Instead, they try to get away with never having one. They use reflective coatings, tinted covers, or modified 3D and 4D lettering to hide from the infrared cameras that ANPR relies on. So, the plate might look normal to the human eye, but be unreadable by cameras. They’re illegal; they carry fines and an MOT failure, and several police forces have run targeted crackdowns on ghost plates.

The A66 case involved suspected cloned plates, and notably, the system worked as designed in one respect, because it was an ANPR activation that first alerted officers to the vehicle. However, while the technology can flag a suspect plate, it can’t reliably prove which physical plate is real, and that’s the gap that many criminals exploit.

How the rest of the world does number plates

When comparing the UK system to those around the world, India gives us the clearest contrast. Since 2019, all new vehicles in the country must carry a High Security Registration Plate. 

Each one features the following safety features:

• A hot-stamped chromium hologram

• A laser-etched code unique to that individual plate

• Hot-stamped foil across the characters

• Non-reusable snap locks so the plate can’t be removed and refitted without visible damage.

Number plates are also electronically linked to their respective vehicle's registration record, and a tamper-evident sticker on the windscreen repeats the details. 

Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, and Indonesia use similar snap-lock systems. Japan and Singapore also embed holograms in their standard plates. 

Several European manufacturers, particularly in Germany, produce plates with integrated holograms, too. They also use microtext and coded laser marks that reveal themselves at certain angles. The technology is complex, but it’s commercially available and already fitted to millions of vehicles.

The Home Office review recommended a redesign of the British plate to include both visible and covert security markings. It also suggested a proper licensing regime for suppliers and meaningful penalties for those who sell outside the rules.

Will the UK learn from its number plate shortcomings?

Better number plates don’t stop every determined criminal, but security features change the economics and simplicity of number plate crime. A cloned plate, for example, currently requires nothing more than a printer and a willingness to break the rules. But a plate with a hologram, an individual laser code, and a one-time fixing requires industrial equipment, access to controlled materials, and a much more sophisticated criminal mind. It’s also much more expensive.

Each of these prices out another tier of casual offender and gives police a physical test they can apply at the roadside. It would also protect innocent drivers because behind those 13,000 annual cloning reports are motorists receiving penalty notices for journeys they never made. In many cases, there are dozens of cases for one driver, with the burden of proof effectively resting on the victim.

The A66 investigation will run its course, and the full picture of what happened is on the shoulders of the IOPC and the courts. However, progress needs to be made in the UK number plate system because ANPR can read 100 million plates a day, but it can’t tell you whether a single one of them is real.

Buying a Private Number Plate?

Every legitimate number plate starts with a properly transferred registration. National Numbers has been helping motorists buy, sell and transfer private plates for more than 40 years, with over 73 million combinations to choose from. 

Browse for your perfect reg at www.nationalnumbers.co.uk or speak to our friendly, expert sales team on 01642 363738 today.