The Taipei County Police Department yesterday showed off its latest state-of-the-art camera-and-computer system, nicknamed "electronic police," that it plans to use against car thieves starting Sept. 1.
"As long as a subject vehicle is traveling below 200kph, the system will be able to determine whether it is a stolen vehicle or not," said Chen Ying-chieh (
A camera will automatically take pictures of vehicles passing through an intersection and send the images to a computer at the local police station for a match-up.
The computer screens the photos, comparing them with identification data provided by the Criminal Investigation Bureau on stolen cars or motorcycles.
It only takes 0.6 seconds to complete the screen-and-identify process.
When a stolen vehicle is identified, the computer will sound an alert to officers at the station, saying "This is a stolen vehicle."
The "electronic police" system will also automatically switch traffic lights to red in the area where the stolen vehicle was spotted aiding in an effort to trap the vehicle, giving the police time to arrive at the scene and detain the driver of the vehicle.
Police officials said that they are planning to install the system at intersections of main roads nationwide.
They also plan to eventually install the system in patrol cars to compensate for blind spots that stationary cameras cannot cover.
According to Chen, the electronic police system was developed in 1999, and the Taipei County Police Department began testing the system at 15 intersections in August of that year.
As a result of budget cuts, however, the system sat idle, from 2001 to last year, without any maintenance.
The department finally resumed testing of the system last year after resolving its monetary problems.
"We officially announce the success of our new invention today," Chen said.
The department said that with the electronic-police system, officers busted more than 500 car thieves between January and December of last year.
The department's statistics showed that the system's margin of error during the trial run was 5 percent.
Minister of the Interior Yu Cheng-hsien (
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