DORSET Police has added a new tool to its crime fighting arsenal — automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras.

The cameras are capable of reading more than 3,600 number plates an hour at speeds in excess of 100mph, day or night and in all weather.

They are scheduled to be installed over the next three to nine months at a number of locations around the county, with approval from partner agencies and local authorities, and police say they will assist the force in fighting crime by targeting criminals through their use of the roads.

Chief Inspector Bryan Duffy said: “ANPR is a well-established tool for fighting crime, and encompasses the latest technology with smarter thinking to put Dorset Police at the forefront of investment in technology in order to maximise our resources.

“These cameras are not linked to speed enforcement, they are immovable and are locked down onto the road to simply read the number plates of passing vehicles, and not to show the occupants of those vehicles.

"They will provide us with essential vehicle movement details on specific key arterial roads around the county, helping us to target burglars, thieves, drug dealers, drug and drink drivers and cut crime.”

To date, Dorset Police has used ANPR in many investigations and data from existing cameras is being used daily it says to save lives and bring offenders to justice.

ANPR data, the force says, has been instrumental in helping find numerous vulnerable missing people, providing key evidence in murder investigations, multiple fail to stop and serious collisions, robberies, volume drug dealing offences and many other types of crime.

Access to the data from these cameras is strictly controlled by Dorset Police within an encrypted server and is available only to a small number of authorised and trained officers. Records are kept for a maximum of two years and 99.9 per cent of the data is never looked at.

Alerts from vehicles of interest to the police are monitored within the Force Command Centre, where operators can assess each alert and allocate the appropriate resources to intercept the vehicle if required.