ANPR have been widely used in the UK for at least 25 years. It was first used 32 years ago in 1993 around the City of London.

They were initially deployed without discussion as it would have tipped their hand. The coverage back then was on the main roads around major cities, criminals with enough knowledge could have used minor roads, or used fake plates.

Discussions in the UK in meetings would be about the benefits of them, what arrests the use of ANPR have enabled. Councils have regular scheduled meetings about crime. There would be no real in depth discussion about new ones; that either never happened or happened before many of us (and many of the politicians discussing them!) were born.