Thousands of ghost plates detected as illegal registration scheme poses public safety risk

A new camera system being tested on motorways in south-east England has exposed a problem that authorities are only now beginning to measure: thousands of vehicles are driving with registration plates deliberately designed to be invisible to the automatic number plate recognition cameras that police rely on to enforce speed limits, track criminals, and monitor low-emission zones. Over several months at a single test site near the Dartford Crossing outside London, the system recorded an average of more than 1,000 of these so-called ghost plates each day. At another location near the M25, detections have climbed from 1,000 daily to nearly 2,000, while a third site near Folkestone is flagging more than 400 a day. The UK operates one of the world's largest ANPR networks, with 14,000 camera sites capturing 100 million number plates daily, yet this infrastructure is failing to catch vehicles equipped with plates that use special reflective materials to render registration numbers unreadable to most motorway cameras.

The ease with which these plates can be obtained is staggering. Panorama's undercover investigation at a market in Essex found that two out of three vendors approached were willing to sell ghost plates designed to evade London's Ultra-Low Emission Zone cameras. One seller handed over a brand-new plate for £40 in cash without requesting identification or proof of ownership—both legally required. The transaction took eight minutes. Across the UK, more than 34,000 businesses are registered with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency to supply number plates. Becoming a registered supplier requires only filling out a form and paying a one-time fee, with minimal oversight. Since 2020, just two plate suppliers have been prosecuted and removed from the DVLA register. Only six DVLA officers are tasked with inspecting and auditing the thousands of registered suppliers nationwide.

The human cost of this regulatory vacuum has been measured in lives. Sharon Gannon's son, Jason Wallis, was killed in a crash in Buckinghamshire in 2023 when he and his brother-in-law, Lewis Baker, were riding motorbikes at high speed and collided with a car. Baker survived and was later jailed for 15 months for dangerous driving. In court, he admitted using a device to hide his number plate from public view and acknowledged that he and Wallis had ridden at high speed more than 100 times. "It has broken us all," Gannon says of the crash's impact on her family. In another case from 2025, 81-year-old Graham Slinn was killed on a pedestrian crossing when a car with cloned plates—where two vehicles share the same registration number—struck him at high speed. The driver, 20-year-old Cain Byrne, was operating without a licence or insurance and had inhaled nitrous oxide minutes before the collision. Police identified him only after reviewing hours of CCTV footage, which captured the moment he applied the illegal plates. Byrne was sentenced to 11 years and six months for causing death by dangerous driving. Slinn's daughter, Nicola Timmis, describes cloned plates as a "gateway drug" that emboldens drivers to escalate their risk-taking. "It seems like it's harmless, but then one thing leads to another, leads to another, and before you know it, it's somebody dead," she told Panorama. "It is not a victimless crime."

There are two types of illegal plates in circulation. Cloned plates display the same letters and numbers on multiple vehicles, with only one registration being legitimate. Ghost plates show the correct details for a single vehicle but are manufactured with reflective materials that make them difficult or impossible for ANPR cameras to read. Both look normal to the naked eye. Tony Porter, a former senior counter-terrorism officer who has advised the government on surveillance cameras, argues that the vulnerability undermines police capacity to track organised crime. "The police need an effective ANPR system that doesn't have weaknesses and doesn't put the public at risk," he says. He points out the contradiction: passports have watermarks and electronic ID chips, yet the UK tolerates a £10 number plate with no security mechanism whatsoever.

When Panorama accompanied police and DVLA officers on a roadside operation near Birmingham and West Bromwich, they witnessed the problem firsthand. Officers stopped a van and used specialist infrared goggles—which view plates the way ANPR cameras do—to reveal a ghost plate. The driver received a £100 fine but claimed he was unaware the plate was illegal. Police then visited the plate supplier, where staff denied selling ghost plates. Yet when officers used the infrared goggles to inspect the supplier's stock, Panorama identified two ghost plates on display alongside legal ones. Police also found ghost letters and numbers stored separately on a shelf, suggesting what officers described as "some level of intent." The supplier received a warning letter, though prosecution remains under consideration.

Chief Constable Tim Forber, the UK's policing lead on ANPR, says police forces are calling for tighter licensing and regulation of number plate suppliers. "Not a week goes by where we don't see an example of someone on cloned plates involved in serious and organised crime," he says. Justin Madders, the minister responsible for vehicle registration across the UK, acknowledges the problem and says the government is establishing a national centre to crack down on illegal plates. The centre will bring together police forces to share intelligence and trial new technologies aimed at improving road safety, tackling organised crime, and preventing drivers from dodging fines. "I don't think we can rule anything in or out at this stage," Madders says, leaving open the possibility of more substantial regulatory changes to come.