Ex-Victoria Police commissioner wants every new car fitted with GPS trackers to cut crime

A PLAN to fit every new car with a GPS tracker would drastically cut crime, a former chief commissioner of Victoria Police says.

A PLAN to fit every new car with a GPS tracker would drastically cut crime, a former chief commissioner of Victoria Police says.

Fitting new cars with “G-tags”, would deter and prevent criminals, former Victoria Police chief commissioner Kel Glare, chairman of the Community Advocacy Alliance, says.

He believes the tagging would also allow police to be more efficient and would reduce pressure on resources.

Former Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Kel Glare. Picture: Hamish Blair

Investigators used GPS data collected from a stolen ambulance to trace the vehicle’s movements and eventually find the body of murdered outback nurse Gayle Woodford in South Australia’s far north this year.

The potential for GPS in vehicles to help police and reduce crime is far-reaching, according to the group of former senior police officers.

It could allow stolen vehicles to be found quickly and reduce the pressure on police time; domestic violence victims to be protected, with a known offender’s vehicle tagged to warn police if they are going towards the victim; and missing and vulnerable people to be found.

Retired Victoria Police inspector Ivan Ray, secretary of the CAA, said: “It is widely used in the community … the devices record and retransmit its own location to a satellite … The retransmitted signal allows the identification of the vehicle’s location.

“Central to this proposal will be the fitting of tracking devices to every vehicle.

“We now accept security cameras as a way of life as well as speed cameras … an acceptable inconvenience that serves the greater good.”

The CAA believes it would increase in a perpetrator’s mind the likelihood they could be caught.

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