The police will soon start scanning the number plates of every vehicle entering Amsterdam by installing what police chief Bernard Welten describes as a ‘digital moat’ around the city, the Parool reports on Wednesday.

Cameras are currently used to control if lorries which break pollution regulations enter the city boundaries. By the end of the year, the images taken by the scanners will also be used to trace taxi drivers who cause a nuisance and ‘young criminals’, the paper says.
The police are currently only allowed to use number plate recognition systems on an incidental basis.
Mayor Eberhard van der Laan told the paper he did not think there were any legal obstacles to the plan. The city council will discuss the plan on Thursday.