With Congestion Charging in London driven by a system that recognises number plates, and the Police in the process of building a database of all car journeys in the country using a similar system, secure number plates seem a sensible idea. Of course, it still doesn’t stop someone from having false number plates made up. Since documents with high-tech security features are forged on a regular basis, I have little doubt that the humble £10 number plate presents few obstacles for the determined criminal.
Numberplates are clearly an insecure system. Designed to allow drivers who drive carelessly or recklessly to be held accountable, they do a good job at allowing those who have not set out with intent to break the law to be held accountable for their actions. For other purposes they are, if not useless, then extremely unreliable. The more they are used for other purposes, the greater the incentive for those with criminal intent to arrange for their vehicles to display a different set of letters and numbers, and the weaker the system as a whole becomes.