There are now 77 more automatic license plate readers in the province, and many of them have been handed out to members of the Provincial Response Team which includes conservation officers. 

"It's a computerized system," explained Game Warden, Lindsey Leko whose vehicle has one of these devices. "It's a scanning device that is mounted on the top of police officer's vehicles and now conservation officers vehicles which automatically reads licence plates and then it matches them to a database supplied by SGI."

"Basically what it does is it identifies suspended drivers, stolen vehicles and unregistered vehicles."

"Now that we're part of the Provincial Response Team, that is going to be part of our mandate in trying to make the rural part of the province safer and making sure that we don't have any of these types of vehicles out there."

The system is also hooked up to the Amber Alert program. 

"Another plus that I personally liked in it is that we can program our own license plates and own information into it. So for example, during hunting season, if I have a specific target that I'm looking for or if I've got a suspended hunter or a suspended angler, as I'm out there patrolling, it will automatically scan that plate. If it turns up to be a match, it'll identify it and let me know and then I can continue on with whatever enforcement that I would be required to do."

"As out job evolves, some of this technology is now going to help us out."

He added for those who are concerned about law enforcement being able to collect information on drivers, they need not worry.

"All it does, as I'm driving around, it identifies a plate. The screen goes red with an audible warning saying that it has triggered something in the database and it gives me a location, a time and a plate number. It gives me no personal information on the driver at all."

"Once I receive that information, then the investigation part starts. At that point, I want to confirm that it read the plate properly then we have to go through the normal investigative process of contacting SGI or going through our laptop database to determine in fact if it is a stolen vehicle or if it is unregistered or a disqualified driver."

"There is a chance that if I didn't update it that morning perhaps that driver registered their vehicle the night before or that morning and it is perfectly fine. It's in real time as long as the officers make sure they update their database regularly."

He added that once the plate shows up, the information disappears after approximately ten seconds unless they choose to save the information.