This is the sort of thing you can expect once Big Brother has taken your firearms away:

"CrimTrac has told us there will be 5000 cameras around the country, overwhelmingly in populated areas, taking some 70 million photos every day.

"There'll be maybe 1000 cameras in downtown Sydney, close to that number in Melbourne, perhaps 100 or so in Brisbane.

"If you use the main roads, you're likely to be snapped several times a day, and all those photos and any related data will be held by CrimTrac for up to five years."

Mr Vaile said it was false to represent the proposal as number plate recognition: "It's a photograph-all-drivers system."

At present, there are an estimated 300 fixed ANPR cameras and 100 mobile units in Australia.

CrimTrac is due to hand a $2.2 million scoping study for an integrated ANPR to the Minister for Home Affairs, Bob Debus, and the Ministerial Council for Police and Emergency Management in November.

According to a privacy consultation paper issued in June, all ANPR data collected would be made available to participating agencies in real time, and retained for five years for future investigations.

This fails my Jews in the Attic Test with such authority it takes some thought to imagine ways to fail worse.

As my Austrialian friend who sent me the link said, "This is some scary shit..."