The answer to this? So, it seems highly unlikely a fleet of TV detector vans ever swept the country, nicking TV licence transgressors.
Their primary function seems to be as a scare tactic, no more than a publicity stunt designed to frighten people into paying their licence fee. If more doubt needs casting, I have never met anyone who was, or knows of anyone who was, involved with TV licence detection vans.
Had there been a covert organisation spying on the public, why have we never had a whistle-blower come forward? No doubt a few existed, and maybe over the last seventy years, they had the technology to detect unlicensed TV sets. The rest is a fabrication. The adverts told us that if we were caught watching an unlicenced TV by a detector van, it would lead directly to prosecution.
However, I find the TV detector van myth deceitful and patronising. This is understandable and necessary, given how we access TV using multiple devices, over numerous channels, day or night.
It is 35 years since 30 million of us sat down on Christmas Day and watched Den serve Angie with the divorce papers. Sometime soon, there will be a moment when every person in the country is watching something different. By then, the licence fee will have long gone, and the hated vans — in whatever modern form they take - will have sculked off to the scrapyard.
It is debatable whether TV detector vans were ever in use, let alone still in use! Even prior employees of TV Licensing admit the technology didn't and doesn't exist, although unsurprisingly TV Licensing continue to say they have various TV detection methods in use.
Documentary evidence is also loquacious by its absence. What was the point, then? A BBC lawyer explained:. This is because TVL uses detection evidence when applying for search warrants. If, following service of the warrant an individual is found to be evading payment of the TV Licence, then the evidence obtained via the search warrant is used in court, not the detection evidence.
Uh, OK. That kind of evidence. We can see this process in action in a rare documented case from Under oath, in support of an application for a search warrant, one Chris Cristophorou from TV Licensing submitted that:.
On the 31st March at You must login or create an account to comment. Chronological Insightful Highest Voted Funniest. Fortunately we don't have that problem in Finland. Here, everyone over the age of 18 pays the TV tax, no exceptions. It's taken right out of your income tax. We don't have license officials knocking on doors, no detector cars driving around. No bureaucracy. Everyone pays, period. I don't quite get this. If they want to know who's using their iPlayer service, then why don't they just log IPs on their servers instead of this "private Wi-Fi network sniffing" nonsense?
Anomnomnymous Cowhead wrote:. It is a common problem in many other countries, I'm still surprised that it is dealt with in such a prehistoric way. In Italy TVL evasion is very high, and the solution was to bundle its payment with electricity bill. A lot of practical problems ensued If you have a TV set and only use it to watch programmes broadcast within North Korea [ Our facilities had to be hardened to prevent interception.
The technology may not have existed in the 's, but it most certainly exists now. I got rid of my licence in April as there had been nothing worth watching for years before that. Not had one since. Get a couple threatening letters a month from TVL which I ignore.
A television display generates light at specific frequencies. Some of that light escapes through windows A friend of mine doesn't own a telly. He regularly gets TV Licence people coming round asking him why he doesn't have a licence. He has shown them round his house several times. Look, no TV! It's obvious that a database of "households with no licence" exists. I have heard from various sources that your TV detector vans cannot actually detect if someone is watching telly. Please could you advise if this is the case and disclose any relevant information as to whether these vans are effectively an empty threat or not?
I appreciate that these days through various unlawful methods you could make a reasonable guess as to whether someone was watching iPlayer, but I remain very sceptical in regards of your ability to pinpoint a more traditional TV signal to a specific house. Thank you for your request for information under the Freedom of Information Act Your request was received on 29 July We will deal with your request as promptly as possible, and at the latest within 20 working days.
If you have any queries about your request, please contact us at the address below. Please find attached the response to your request for information, reference RFI Visible links 1. I can answer this request truthfully for you, there does not exist any vehicle that can detect a TV signal in the way you describe. It would be impossible to be in a vehicle and detect a single signal from an aerial with any kind of equipment.
Especially now that old type aerials are defunct. There is however, a vehicle contractors use to visit a property that has no record on database of having a valid licence.
But this vehicle does not have any equipment that would allow anyone to use to detect any signal. So it appears the respondent has told an untruth. Help us protect your right to hold public authorities to account.
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