THE daily journeys of millions of motorists across Britain will be recorded by computer as they drive on motorways or in city centres.

Finishing touches are being put to a central database in North London, which will link 3,000 closed-circuit cameras across the country with automatic numberplate recognition computers, national car records and police control rooms.

The database, next to the Metropolitan Police training college in Hendon, will store details of 35 million numberplates recorded each day with the time of the identification and the location. Eventually, chief constables hope to connect their system to the security cameras used at filling station forecourts and the garages at large supermarkets.

The system will automatically alert police if a car is stolen, if road tax has not been paid, if the MoT is out of date or if the driver is uninsured. It will also check whether there is a warrant for the arrest of the owner or whether a police force has asked to be made aware of his or her whereabouts.

Frank Whiteley, the Chief Constable of Hertfordshire and the chairman of a chief constables’ steering committee, said yesterday: “What the data centre should be able to tell you is where a vehicle was in the past and where it is now, whether it was or was not at a particular location and the routes taken to and from those crime scenes.”

He said: “In simple terms criminals use vehicles. If you want to commit a crime you’re going to use a vehicle.” The system, he said, could be as revolutionary as DNA. This development forms the basis of a 24/7 vehicle movement database that will revolutionise arrest, intelligence and crime investigation opportunities on a national basis.”

The system, known as the ANPR Information, Intelligence and Technology Strategy, is seen by detectives as a powerful tool in catching professional criminals such as burglars and drug dealers who use the motorway network. It has already been used in counter-terrorist operations and police say that motorists who flout traffic law by, for instance, not having insurance cover are often also criminals.

Traffic officers think that the cameras could also cut accidents because they will deter or allow them to catch disqualified drivers. Every motorway in the country now has CCTV cameras at strategic points.

There are also cameras at ferry ports and the Channel Tunnel. Fifty local authorities have linked their inner-city networks to the system and the congestion charge cameras around Central London are also connected. Others include the City of London, where the cameras were piloted in the 1990s, Bradford, Stoke and Northampton.

Records of numberplates will be kept for two years and the capacity could be enlarged to allow the data to be stored for up to five years. The system will allow the police and MI5 to build up a picture of the movements of suspects or identify cars that could be connected to a crime. Early versions of the system were used to build up evidence against a Real IRA bombing team responsible for attacking the BBC. A CCTV network in Bradford linked to numberplate computers was used to hunt for cars involved in the murder of WPC Sharon Beshenivsky last month.

The system will be backed by intercept units in every force, which would halt vehicles that police urgently want to stop. Police think that about one in 100 of the cars spotted by the cameras each day could come into this category.

Last night a spokesman for Liberty, the civil liberties group, said that it was concerned that the movements of innocent members of the public should be stored for up to five years. “This is a gross invasion of privacy and one not matched by big gains in catching criminals,” he said.

The system has been tested by police across the country. In one operation, police in Northampton stopped a stolen car that led them to £500,000 of stolen designer clothes. In Bath, a stolen car was spotted by numberplate recognition three minutes after it was reported and the thief was arrested.

3,000 surveillance cameras in England and Wales

32m vehicle records are held by the DVLA

39m people licensed to drive

5.8m criminal records held by police

12,000 drivers are currently disqualified

2m vehicles “of interest” to the police

8m records per second that can be scanned by computer

£25m size of Home Office grant for ANPR