Chile. The Municipality of Vallenar signed an agreement with the Association of Insurers of Chile to implement a license plate reader system, in order to detect car theft and other illicit acts related to vehicles.
This agreement contemplates the implementation of a digital plate reading system, which will allow obtaining relevant information from any vehicle. Among its functions would be to detect if a vehicle is reported for theft, report the status of permits, report arrears in payment of fines. In general, report on any type of pending legal situation, no matter in which community or municipality you are registered.
The mayor of the commune Armando Flores Jiménez, said: "This system will also serve to generate an extensive database that will help the work of the Transit Directorate of the municipality." In addition, he said that this agreement ratifies the need to work together with the private sector and the community, to give more security to the inhabitants of Vallenar.
Catisis Lobos, in charge of the Department of Community Prevention and Security of the municipality, indicated that the technology that is sought to be implemented will allow to identify the vehicles, through the patent readers (plates) and evaluate in real time the illicit acts committed with them, which will be done while the mobile operators (that is, the agents of the law) make their preventive routes.
Although at the moment it is not clearly explained what will be the technology provider, name of the solution or the type of software to be used, Catasis was emphatic that with this strategy "we will be preventing risk situations with people, but also avoiding other types of risks, such as the use of stolen cars".
Now, since May 2020, the Chilean government would have delivered to the public an application called Auto Seguro, which allows you to check by VIN number, engine and license plate, if a vehicle has a theft report, to reduce these events and recover the components more easily. That is, with this open access tool the possibility of selling cars and auto parts (especially the engine) that are already reported is reduced.
Other important developments
At the beginning of this year (2022) the Association of Insurers of Chile and the Undersecretariat of Crime Prevention signed an agreement to confront vehicle theft, in what would be a public-private collaboration, composed of the association, various municipalities, the police and the different authorities that are responsible for ensuring the safety of highways. All this also projected to stop the "encerronas".
Lock-ups are a method of theft in which the perimeter of a running car is enclosed and the driver is violently intimidated to snatch the vehicle while it is still moving. This procedure is used to prevent the activation of safety devices installed in the car, which make theft difficult when the engine is off or the vehicle is parked.
