Why would someone photograph a licence plate?

[Angusdog]

My wife was walking back to her car and saw a guy with a cellphone taking a photo of her numberplate. He walked off before she could ask him about it. The car is rare-ish but not exotic, not a classic and not what I would consider a car desirable to car thieves.

Why? And why do they blur out number plates on the telly, when you could see those plates in real life? Is this something I should be concerned about, or is he probably into the same sorts of cars as my wife's?

[Warr]

Have you changed the ownership on a vehicle recently.
Its about as hard as handing over $10 .. or is it $9.
Perhaps they have evil intent... perhaps not

[Steam]

They can find out where the car is registered, and come round and steal it.

But alternatively, one of my artistic friends used to be obsessed with plates beginning with LZ, and collected hundreds of pictures of LZ's, and we all joined in too. She framed them and put them on the wall, must have been a hundred different cars beginning with LZ at least.
Here's what they said when we found one for her: "Thanks!! Oooh, a three digit, thats rare!!! Did you get a picture of the whole car? we like pictures with the whole car. But thank you for that none the less. they are scarce in wellington region, it is a commendable effort to have found one!"

[sunhuntin]

something like $2 at a postshop will give you the details of the owner... including, i think, address. plates are blurred so people cant track the rich and famous, or ID the car as a wealthy/important persons and cause damage [like many of us would like to do to uncle helens, or transits boss.]

[Luckylegs]

A "traffic nazi" from http://snapt.co.nz perhaps....

[candor]

Well a thief would just write it down. They do it at airports then get your address and rob you. This sounds a weird one.

[Big Dave]

The police have taken mine a few times. Notice usually come in the mail with a polite request for $80 or thereabouts.

[Dave Lobster]

I always take photos of cars parked next to me in carparks. Esp if it looks like a bag of shit. That way, if there's a dent in my car when I get back to it, I've got a fighting chance of knowing who did it.

[El Dopa]

A local nutter is currently spambombing people at our work (among many others). He thinks we are helping implant tracking and torture devices under his skin while he's asleep. Peter Jackson is behind it all, apparently.

Anyway, since I know people like this exist, and while they may be demented, they ain't stupid (this guy can quite obviously use the internet more than competantly), I tend to try to keep the amount of my personal details that are readily available publicly to a minimum.

[homer]

They can find out where the car is registered, and come round and steal it.

But alternatively, one of my artistic friends used to be obsessed with plates beginning with LZ, and collected hundreds of pictures of LZ's, and we all joined in too. She framed them and put them on the wall, must have been a hundred different cars beginning with LZ at least.
Here's what they said when we found one for her: "Thanks!! Oooh, a three digit, thats rare!!! Did you get a picture of the whole car? we like pictures with the whole car. But thank you for that none the less. they are scarce in wellington region, it is a commendable effort to have found one!"

Actually if there still all about there should be 999 in total

[Steam]

Actually if there still all about there should be 999 in total

Yes, but the 4 number ones are so much more common... there are 9999 of them, so its comparatively rare

[sunhuntin]

i like foreign plates, but wouldnt photograph them. generally i blur them before posting online [need to do the burt ones though] and try and avoid getting them in the shot. i will take a photo of the rego card so i can be sure to get the year right when doing titles. that generally doesnt get posted either.

[McJim]

I like the system in the UK. The only people who can look up ownership of a number plate are the Police. No one else.

[McJim]

My wife was walking back to her car and saw a guy with a cellphone taking a photo of her numberplate. He walked off before she could ask him about it. The car is rare-ish but not exotic, not a classic and not what I would consider a car desirable to car thieves.

Why? And why do they blur out number plates on the telly, when you could see those plates in real life? Is this something I should be concerned about, or is he probably into the same sorts of cars as my wife's?

Did your wife get a photo of this twerp?

[disenfranchised]

A friend of mine plays a game with his girl, where they try and keep beating each other to have seen the newest number plate.

Phone photo would be for proof.

New car is it??