Detector vans
A major weapon in the arsenal of TVL/BBC is the Detector van. Or is it?
Letters reproduced on this site periodically refer to "electronic detection equipment":
My view is that, so long as it is not causing an obstruction, the BBC may leave a detector van outside my property as often as they wish. I do not care.
But, out of curiosity, from time to time, I look out of my window to see if I can spot one. So far, I have not seen any. In fact, I have never seen a detector van anywhere, anytime.
A letter to the BBC under the Freedom of Information Act asked how many vans there were, and how many were in operation on a given day, but the BBC declined to provide an answer.
Divulging the number of vans does not, in itself, prevent their effectiveness, any more than knowing the number of police cars undermines the police. Public knowledge that there is a large number of detector vans might be expected to increase prevention rather than reduce it. Therefore, the BBC's refusal to answer implies that the number of detector vans is small.
The number of detector vans is provided by DB Broadcast, the company that services the vans. This scan is from their website:
The highlighted paragraph says that there are two dedicated members of staff working on each of the vehicles every week, completing the vans in a six month period. The conclusion to be drawn is that there are 26 vans.
26 vans, less one for servicing at any one time, is not a particularly large number and accounts for why they are not commonly seen on the roads. By way of comparison, most people have seen Securicor vans; there are 1,900 of these. Such a small number of detector vans is consistent with the BBC's unwillingness to divulge the number, since making it known that there are so few might "prejudice the prevention...of crime..."
4 March 2007: the above press release, added to this website in mid-February 2007, has disappeared from the DB Broadcast website. The conclusion to be drawn from this is that the deduction that there are 26 vans is correct. How important are these 26 vans in tracking down rogue television sets?
The TVL website contains the following:
tvlicensing.co.uk - 1 February 2007The second and third substantive paragraphs are not remarkable. Obviously, TVL/BBC knows which households do not have licences, since TVL/BBC is responsible for issuing them. Illegality concerns the unlicensed receiving of broadcasts, so only the final paragraph is relevant.
Note how the final paragraph is structured. The first sentence describes detector van capabilities. The second says that over a thousand people are caught every day. The impression created is that detection devices are responsible for catching more than a thousand people every day. But the paragraph does not actually say this; it is the running of the two sentences together in the reader's mind that leads to this conclusion, encouraged by the insertion of the term 'in fact'.
TVL/BBC also seeks to impress with use of GPS satellite technology:
tvlicensing.co.uk - 1 February 2007
GPS (Global Positioning System) is a tool for navigation, not detecting the receiving of broadcasts. For those who are unfamiliar with GPS, it is an electronic atlas, whereby roads and street numbers are stored on a database and a synthisized voice tells the driver where to drive ("turn right, turn left"). GPS devices are available for purchase at electrical stores and powered from the vehicle's cigarette lighter.
The sole benefit of GPS to TVL/BBC is that it saves them looking at a map when driving. Expressions such as GPS will help "target individual evader homes" are misleading, since they imply that satellite technology contributes to the detector capabilities of the van. It doesn't.
Hand-held devices
TVL/BBC also employs the use of hand-held detectors; according to the TVL website, they make it "...easy for us to locate TVs, even in the hardest to reach places". These devices are produced by Buckman Hardy Associates; here is a scan from their website:
buckman-hardy.co.uk - 1 March 2007But can these detection devices actually detect a television?
If it is possible to place a man on the moon and split the atom, it would be surprising if it was not possible to detect a television on the other side of a wall. The following is a question put to the BBC under the Freedom of Information Act:
Thus, the BBC confirms that detector equipment exists, and says that it can detect within 20 seconds, but details on how it does this are withheld.
The TVL website also opts for secrecy on how detector vans work:
tvlicensing.co.uk - 1 February 2007If TVL/BBC technology is secret, what role can it play in the legal enforcement process?
The answer is none. Courts cannot convict without evidence, and evidence cannot be heard unless it is available to both prosecution and defence. Since TVL/BBC is unwilling to divulge the inner workings of a detector van, its evidence cannot be used in a prosecution.
Compare the lack of public knowledge on detector vans to speed cameras. Speed cameras are subject to scrutiny. Here is a scan from the BBC's website which does just that:
Faulty or inaccurate speed cameras will cause injustice and bring the speed enforcement process into disrepute. It is in the interests of both motorists and enforcers to make the technology of speed cameras known, for scrutiny ensures credibility, and credibility secures convictions when the speeding laws are broken.
For TV detector devices to be credible, we have to know that they are reliable and accurate. Here is a question on the testing of vans, put to the BBC under the Freedom of Information Act:
The final sentence says, "calibration records...are not available for viewing by the public".
If the public do not have access to the calibration records, nobody outside TVL/BBC can know whether the vans are working correctly. Consequently, any information obtained by the vans cannot be used in an evidential way.
Detector vans - or Dummy vans?
The above observations are based on the assumption that BBC/TVL uses whatever detector technology is available to it. However, there is an alternative view that says detector vans are a myth, cultivated by the BBC to make people think that detector technology is used. This view acknowledges that vans themselves exist, but argues that they are empty; they are dummy vans rather than detector vans.
This view is given credence by exchanges which occasionally appear on the internet. The following have been selected because the writers claim some degree of inside knowledge, or have seen inside a TV detector van.
Posted January 2007
Sir Wendy - The TV licensing agency apparently has vans which can detect TVs and vcrs in unlicensed properties, but I've never seen them and nor has anyone else.
Sinner Boy - I've seen them, but they don't have detectors. They have a list of unlicenced addresses and they go round in the evenings, when they can see the glow through the window. Then they knock on the door and say, "Hello, we've detected a telly in your left hand back bedroom" Then they ask to come in for a look. My mother's ex-boyfriend used to work for them and told us.
Posted September 2005 (edited)
Dilzybhoy - I had a mate who drove about all day in a "detector" van. He was employed to drive around the schemes with the van with the big aerial and "TV detector Van" plastered on the side. It had nothing in it apart from his sleeping bag and some clothes ... I'm not making it up. I've seen inside it ... Twas in 2000 I was in this "detector" van.
Posted April 2005
clive - Regarding this license threat malarky. I happened to be in a petrol station whilst one was filling up and saw in the back of this tv detector van, absolutely empty, it might not be the case in all detector vans but I would imagine a fair few are decoys.
Doubts that detection equipment is used is also given weight by a TVL/BBC announcement in 2003 that detector vans will henceforth have removeable TVL logos:
The press release says that the lack of identifying features on the vans is intentional; people aren't supposed to see them.
But the implication is that neither detector vans nor dummy vans need be used for the BBC to persuade the public that they are still in use, since the BBC need only refer to their 'covert' nature to account for their absence from the streets.
