What we do and how we do it

What we do

The NP Tracker project monitors social media content and reports placed in public domain by users of the different platforms we monitor (If you lookup a number plate and if returns a No report found but you know it was reported in the public domain -ie social media or websites) let us know and we will add that to our list of monitored sources, you can send the sources that you want to add to [email protected].
All public domain content collected through facebook and twitter include the original posters screen name and group posted to -if applicable- for follow-up communication if you spot or find the reported vehicle. However the content collected through our Wechat/Telegram interfaces is anonymous and the original posters detail is removed for security reasons except if the user included his detail in the original lookout.
We save all these reports containing number plates in a central database, users of the NP Tracker system can use the lookup interfaces (wechat/whatsapp/telegram or API) to retrieve number plate checks.

Terms of service

Read up on our Terms of service by submitting to and using our service you agree to this!

Data and user security

We do our utmost to safeguard personal identifiable information and lists of number plates lookout’s and NP Tracker user lists are confidential and are treated the same. Messages posted in the public domain via facebook and twitter will contain the original posters screen name and groups posted to for information verification purposes, however lookouts received through IM platforms (wechat/whatsapp/telegram) user identifiable data supplied by the platform are removed and are not supplied with the lookout report.

Costs

The NP Tracker project is our way to give back to the community and are open for anyone to use, on our Telegram services we ask users for a donation while on the WhatsApp service its a subscription service (currently at R49pm).
Our NPS-API (used to check plates detected through automated ANPR/LPR systems) usage are charge at a minimum fee to cover some of our costs in developing and maintaining this project.

Public domain versus closed systems

The NP Tracker project only use public domain sources – and by that definition are untrusted and unverified. We do not verify lookout reports before publishing it. But that noted, not all suspicious plates end up in closed/verified sources as the culprit should have a case against them to be added (and sometimes that is to late) imagine the following two scenarios:

Scenario 1

Vehicle A drive slowly up and down street in Bloemfontein stopping at houses and peeking over the fences – someone note this as suspicious, report if either on social media or directly to us, and we save this lookout report. Then 3 months from now the same vehicle do the same in Pretoria and someone check the number plate finding the original report(s) noting that the same plate was reported previously doing the same – now the vehicle A did nothing wrong (can be a municipal worker looking for a water meter) but now the user in Pretoria can gather from the reports that this is a trend of this vehicle occupants to look over property fences and better decide to rather drive around the block than to enter his driveway with this vehicle in the vicinity.

Scenario 2

Someone gets hijacked and in the process get pistol whipped – Firstly the victim post of his ordeal on social media or directly to us and the report gets saved – now if someone notice a suspicious vehicle and do a number plate check on it through the NP Tracker project they will get the users lookout report and can act accordingly noted that the original victim will only be able to report the hijacking after the 2-3 hour stay in emergency room then getting to a police station to file the report and then wait x hours for the report to be loaded.

If you come across anything along the way that we haven’t covered, or if you know of a tip you think others would find handy, please let us know and we’ll see about including it in this guide.