Blanked out number plate

[Brian’s Dad]

I've noticed most people obscure their number plates when posting photos on here and Facebook.

My questions is why? I'd guess it's to do with privacy.

....but,

If I see your van I'll know the number plate, anyone else can take a photo and upload it, I drive past 1000s cars a day and see all of their number plates.

Plus the DVLA allows us to look up a number plate and check tax etc

 

[GrannyJen]

I've noticed most people obscure their number plates when posting photos on here and Facebook.

My questions is why? I'd guess it's to do with privacy.

....but,

If I see your van I'll know the number plate, anyone else can take a photo and upload it, I drive past 1000s cars a day and see all of their number plates.

Plus the DVLA allows us to look up a number plate and check tax etc

I blank mine out because I'm not going to post on an open forum "hi folks, this is me, on holiday, a single woman all by herself in vehicle no......."

Equally some may not want to advertise they are away from home, house empty, "look up our reg number and see where we live ...."

 

[MattBW]

I just reduce the chances of people with DVLA access being able to look up where my Cali is. Professional thieves usually have access and the internet makes it easy to search for make and model, look at the pics and get the reg and track it down.

Chances are very slim but a focused site with good google ratings makes them easier to find.

 

[Brian’s Dad]

I just reduce the chances of people with DVLA access being able to look up where my Cali is. Professional thieves usually have access and the internet makes it easy to search for make and model, look at the pics and get the reg and track it down.

Chances are very slim but a focused site like this makes them easier to find.

Other than the DVLA, who else can search the database?

 

[ArunAlec]

It's just another bit of data that, should anyone want to, be used to identify you. It's surprising how much information we all put out on the web, Facebook, forums etc. Things like using real names, too much info about where you go, work etc.

 

[MattBW]

Other than the DVLA, who else can search the database?

Any trader who has access to the DVLA, which sadly is a lot of folks since the DVLA decided to sell our data to anyone all and sundry who might find the data useful. Parking companies, motor traders, etc etc.

 

[MattBW]

It's just another bit of data that, should anyone want to, be used to identify you. It's surprising how much information we all put out on the web, Facebook, forums etc. Things like using real names, too much info about where you go, work etc.

That is true, its amazing how many phone pictures have GPS data in them. Most don't even realise their phones are doing that.

 

[Brian’s Dad]

That is true, its amazing how many phone pictures have GPS data in them. Most don't even realise their phones are doing that.

I've seen comments about this on Twitter with other people - suggestion is to put the phone in Airplane mode (if you remember)

 

[Brian’s Dad]

Any trader who has access to the DVLA, which sadly is a lot of folks since the DVLA decided to sell our data to anyone all and sundry who might find the data useful. Parking companies, motor traders, etc etc.

All quite worrying - need some James Bond rolling number plates

 

[MattBW]

I've seen comments about this on Twitter with other people - suggestion is to put the phone in Airplane mode (if you remember)

You can disable GPS mode for photos in the settings without too much trouble. Fortunately sites like facebook do take out the gps data but not all sites do.

 

[Loz]

You can’t just “get” and address from DVLA it is very hard and requires evidence of an accident or other legal issue and requires a police incident number.
Traders can’t get addresses either only validate vehicle details etc.
Parking companies can but that is normally because they have ticketed you and have photo evidence.

Photos outside your house giving up the exact location is not a good idea.

 

[mccp]

I've seen comments about this on Twitter with other people - suggestion is to put the phone in Airplane mode (if you remember)

Doesn't work with iPhone - GPS only uses a receiver and airplane mode only disables transmitters. You need to switch off location services for the camera. See here.

Edit: sp.

 

[MattBW]

A friend of mine who runs a restoration garage had a van left behind for many years, after a bit of research there was a form we filled in to get the keeper information to track them down and try and get it back to them (or to start charging storage). It will all be auditable Im sure and would lead back to folk so its extremely unlikely but Im a bit risk averse .

I agree with Loz, GPS or even a picture of your van outside your house is probably more risky. People are getting quite good now at tracking down locations just from photos now which is quite amazing.

 

[Velma's Dad]

I think I'd be a bit more worried about all this if there was any plausible indication that Calis are being stolen to order.

On the other hand common sense hopefully would preclude posting a pic of your van on the forum (number plate blanked or not), outside your house, with a message saying "Off to the continent tomorrow for three weeks in our van. Looking forward to stopping off in Paris to see about adding to the wife's vintage jewellry collection. Relying on our lovely neighbours to come in and feed the cats in the mornings while we're gone".

 

[ArunAlec]

I think I'd be a bit more worried about all this if there was any plausible indication that Calis are being stolen to order.

On the other hand common sense hopefully would preclude posting a pic of your van on the forum (number plate blanked or not), outside your house, with a message saying "Off to the continent tomorrow for three weeks in our van. Looking forward to stopping off in Paris to see about adding to the wife's vintage jewellry collection. Relying on our lovely neighbours to come in and feed the cats in the mornings while we're gone".

Many years ago when I worked, we had individual profiles on the intranet which had our whereabouts accessible to all employees (around 200,000). I recall seeing someone's profile showing his diary with annual leave scheduled. He also had a link from this profile to his own personal website. On this he had lots of photos of his rather grand and remote house with a posh Merc in the drive. And to make life easier for a crook he include a "how to find us" map.

 

[Borris]

Many years ago when I worked, we had individual profiles on the intranet which had our whereabouts accessible to all employees (around 200,000). I recall seeing someone's profile showing his diary with annual leave scheduled. He also had a link from this profile to his own personal website. On this he had lots of photos of his rather grand and remote house with a posh Merc in the drive. And to make life easier for a crook he include a "how to find us" map.

So if I do this, buglars might come and relieve me of at least some of the mountain of clutter Mrs B has collected over the years?

 

[Bellcrew]

So if I do this, buglars might come and relieve me of at least some of the mountain of clutter Mrs B has collected over the years?

Nah, they will only take the good stuff!

 

[Crell]

I think another reason was to avoid plate cloning. Your pic of your vehicle and number plate allowed crims to use that plate (cloned) on the same vehicle type in a matching colour.

 

[Loz]

I think another reason was to avoid plate cloning. Your pic of your vehicle and number plate allowed crims to use that plate (cloned) on the same vehicle type in a matching colour.

doesn't happen as often as the myth would suggest, easy to defend if you add something distinctive and and take a photo of it..

Your vehicle number could be cloned anytime you drive it. best you lock it in your garage and never use it

 

[Crell]

doesn't happen as often as the myth would suggest, easy to defend if you add something distinctive and and take a photo of it..

Your vehicle number could be cloned anytime you drive it. best you lock it in your garage and never use it

I would have tended to agree on this being more of a myth (I remember when it focused on a few specific performance brands and models), and it's not really something I'd expect to affect a Cali, but the overall numbers here seem to suggest otherwise. 250k actual cloned plates based on ANPR data out of ~38m vehicles in the UK. The article headline is just rubbish clickbait.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/news/one-in-12-cars-have-cloned-number-plates/

 

[Crell]

Chances are very slim but a focused site with good google ratings makes them easier to find.

Particularly when that site (<cough>..err this site) publishes a nice easy to use map showing owner / user locations who then handily put their reg no, colours etc in to their public profiles.
Literally the first pin I clicked was a forum member who gave their actual name as their user name. I could then click to their profile where they'd shared their name again & age.
Their profile pic was their van leaving a driveway. Their company vehicle (their name on it) was parked behind from which I could work out the address in about a minute if I was inclined. Slightly getting away from the original question but it's very easy to piece together information if you want to target a particular vehicle for something other than cloning when so much information is willingly shared and made available.
It's up to us individually what we consider appropriate to share - informed or otherwise. Just pointing it out.

Just on the the DVLA public search, it requires you to input a plate; you can't conveniently (without an element of attacking the site with a bot) use it to try to look up a vehicle like the one you intend to clone; which is the real use case for cloning. There's no need to do that when google images is full of vehicle images searchable by type and colour. That's all you need to fool an ANPR or similar camera and there's nothing you can do about it.