Mr. Conor Faughnan:

That is a good question. I do not want to guess an answer and be wrong. I know, for example, that it is used by the PSNI, and consequently one assumes it has a statutory status of some sort. If one drives past a police car camera on the road into Belfast, the camera will read the registration number, the registration number will be compared with the insurance database, and the police officer's dashboard will then go "ping."