Spots 
Thousands of illegal registration plates on cars and other vehicles have been detected by a new camera system currently being tested on motorways in south-east England, BBC Panorama can reveal.
These plates have been adapted to avoid their details being identified by automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) systems, which are used to enforce speed limits and low emission zones, as well as track criminals.
Illegal plates are putting the public at risk and are far too easy to get hold of, according to one former government advisor. We have spoken to families who say their lives have been devastated by road deaths where illegal plates were involved. Filming undercover, we also discovered how easy and cheap it is to buy plates without any background checks.
The minister responsible for vehicle registration across the UK has told us a national plan has now been instigated to understand how widespread the problem of illegal number plates is, and what can be done about it.
The UK has one of the largest networks of ANPR cameras in the world, with 14,000 sites capturing 100 million number plates each day. Many experts believe this system is failing to keep up with tactics used by some drivers determined to avoid recognition. Ghost Plates: Drivers Cheating the Law
How cloned and ghost number plates are leaving innocent motorists facing fines, debt collection threats and years of stress. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0032b8f Watch on BBC iPlayer or on BBC One (BBC Two in Northern Ireland) at 20:00 on Monday 28 September.
These tactics include deliberately using false plates that clone the number of another vehicle - and so-called "ghost plates", where special plastic is used to make all or part of the registration number unreadable by most motorway cameras.
One of the main providers of ANPR technology, MAV Systems, has been testing a new camera capable of identifying and reading ghost plates.
At one test site, just outside London near the Dartford Crossing, it has recorded an average of more than 1,000 of the ghost plates a day over several months.
Two other sites have been running for almost two years. At one, near the M25, detections have risen from 1,000 a day to nearly 2,000 a day - while at the other, near the Eurotunnel at Folkestone, the system is flagging more than 400 a day.
Thousands of illegal registration plates on cars and other vehicles have been detected by a new camera system currently being tested on motorways in south-east England, BBC Panorama can reveal.