RFID stickers could be coming to car windscreens, as the Victorian Government confirms it is considering them to combat number plate theft.
The Victorian Government has confirmed it is working on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) stickers as a solution to number plate theft and cloning. RFID stickers trialled in Victoria in 2019 resembled a high-tech version of, the now obsolete, adhesive car registration labels.
“We are working closely with Victoria Police and VicRoads on solutions to combat number plate theft and cloning in Victoria, including Radio Frequency Identification stickers,” a spokesperson told Drive.
RFID stickers on a vehicle's window effectively act as a ‘third’ number plate, as an additional way to identify your vehicle.
If the signal in the RFID tag does not match the car's number plate details, this indicates the car might have stolen or cloned plates.
RFID technology powers many modern-day conveniences, such as wireless card payments, wireless car keys, and building access fobs.
Drivers in Australian states with toll roads might already be familiar with ‘e-tags’, which are a type of RFID device used by toll road operators to identify a vehicle when it passes under an RFID scanner.
Victoria's 2019 trial involved the Victorian Government commissioning Latrobe University to test various digital identification technologies, including RFID stickers, with the goal of reducing number plate theft and cloning.
As part of the trial, the RFID car identity stickers also had an image of the vehicle's number plate, a QR code, a hologram, and a serial number to provide multiple checks that a vehicle is not using stolen or cloned number plates.
Since 2019, recorded annual offences of number plate theft in Victoria have increased from 20,264 to 32,157. These figures do not include instances of cloned plates, with this data not recorded by Victoria Police.
The results of the 2019 trial were originally not made public, but have recently been released to Drive under Victoria’s Freedom of Information (FOI) laws.
The study explored a number of technologies, but RFID tags placed on a vehicle's windscreen were the clear frontrunners according to the researchers.
“This report concludes that passive RF tags (Radio Frequency tags) provide a viable solution to be implemented today. Passive RF tags, placed on the inside of the windshield, can reliably be detected, not only in controlled conditions, but also in hectic urban and busy highway environments," the researchers stated.
The study explored a number of options for where RFID scanners could be placed to check a car's RFID sticker in combination with an automatic number plate recognition system (ANPR).
These tested locations were in places drivers would already be familiar spotting traffic cameras, including mounted at intersections, in the back of stationary vehicles, and placed above motorway gantries, etc.
As part of the research, police tested using a handheld RF reader to identify a vehicle, and the study noting that law enforcement officers interviewed by researchers found this appealing.
“Feedback from police officers and sheriffs was very positive. They welcome the ability to use a handheld RF reader to verify the identity of the vehicle. The added benefit of the RF sticker is that it can feature a printed version of the number plate, which allows police officers or sheriffs to visually detect a mismatch between the number plate on the car and the so called ‘3rd number plate’,” the researchers stated.
Several police officers drew parallels with old physical registration labels, scrapped by Victoria in 2014, in their feedback regarding if RFID stickers would aid efforts to verify a number plate as authentic.
“Presuming these stickers were tamper proof, anti-peel like the old rego stickers were. That's what I am basing the [high] score on,” a police officer said.
“Very confident in having 2 forms of ID for the vehicles, especially since the old rego sticker was removed,” said another police officer.
The Victorian Government estimated in 2013 that phasing out registration stickers would save $20 million dollars per year.
Speaking exclusively to Drive, VicRoads CEO Giles Thompson expressed his interest in the capabilities of RFID and AI technology.
“Things like RFID type technology, where you don't have to have a line of sight on the number plate, you can pick it up through radio waves and those types of things, and of course the whole world of AI is yet to be explored in this space and there's plenty of opportunity there, I'm sure, over the coming years.”
However, Thompson made clear it is not VicRoads' responsibility to drive any adoption of new technologies, that instead falls upon Victoria Police and the Department of Transport.
“The way that the number plate world, or ecosystem works, is that it is ultimately the responsibility of the state, and so that's the Department of Transport, working with the VicPol, working with the Department of Justice," Thompson said.
"And we work with those organisations to help implement what policy is determined around the security of plates.
So that's our role with that. We don't drive that process. We work with the statutory authorities to work through those new technologies.
“There’s new technologies coming up right across the world all the time, and we're certainly alive to those technologies and work with manufacturers and authorities around the world to ensure that we in Victoria are at least considering the opportunities that come up.”
Use of RFID stickers to identify vehicles already occurs in some other parts of the world. Since 2016 all newly registered vehicles in Kenya have used third number plate stickers with embedded RFID, according to Germany Vehicle identification and number plate manufacturer Toennjes.
As well as windscreen mounted stickers, Toennjes also manufacture aluminium number plates with an integrated RFID chip.
Other options explored by the 2019 La Trobe University study included adding the sticker to vehicles without the RFID component, as a third identifier, alongside the addition of holograms and directional security markings to number plates.
The Victorian Government announced in late 2022 that directional security markings would be added to all newly issued standard number plates.
Max is the News Publishing Coordinator for Drive. He enjoys creating engaging digital content, including videos, podcasts, interactive maps, and graphs. Prior to Drive, he studied at Monash University and gained experience working for various publications. He grew up playing Burnout 3: Takedown on the PS2 and was disappointed when real life car races didn’t have the same physics.
