e-Plate
The e-Plate is a license plate equipped with an active RFID module . It has been produced by the British company Hill Numberplates Ltd. since 2001 . and then field-tested by the British Department for Transport . Such license plates are now mandatory for motorcycles in England .
technology
The RFID tags are firmly embedded in the license plates, the plates themselves are manufactured in such a way that they cannot be removed without being destroyed. The e-Plates are equipped with batteries so that they will automatically transmit their ID for at least 10 years after activation. In contrast to passive RFID systems with ranges of just a few meters, the ID can be read up to a distance of around 100 meters with appropriate resident or stationary sensors. The radio identification is encrypted and, according to the manufacturer's instructions, can be read out and clearly identified. This should prevent counterfeiting and copies.
The associated reading devices should be able to read out up to 200 e-plate IDs simultaneously, even from vehicles moving past them at high speeds of up to 320 km / h. The IDs can be compared with the corresponding vehicle data by connecting the readers to a central system. In addition to the vehicle type and owner information, this also includes tax and insurance data.
application
In particular, with the introduction of the inner city toll in London , in which vehicle license plates are recorded using video, the abuse of vehicle license plates in Great Britain has risen sharply. The need for secure identification systems is therefore increasing. For the purpose of simplified electronic toll collection, RFID systems are already used in several countries. In the case of city toll systems, the RFID technology of the e-plates could supplement or replace the complex camera-based license plate recognition, the results of which are also heavily dependent on the weather conditions. Applications in the pursuit of traffic offenses are conceivable, analogous to the section control system, in which the vehicles are recorded at the beginning and end of a defined route section and the speed of the vehicle can be calculated from the time driven and, if necessary, automatically tracked when exceeded. Vehicle identification systems based on the e-Plate could also be used in law enforcement.
The e-plates could also be used for wireless and automatic payment at petrol stations . The oil company ExxonMobil introduced the Speedpass system, which is based on RFID technology , in the USA in the 1990s .
Data protectionists have already expressed concerns about the extensive linking of vehicle and owner data and their use for the prosecution of crimes and for economic purposes .