Why hide a number plate?
A number plate leads to a car's owner. In the European Union it counts as personal data, and publishing it can expose the owner to unwanted attention — or you to a complaint.
For spotters, masking plates is simply good manners: the car is the subject, not the person who owns it. The best spotting accounts have done it for years, usually by hand, photo after photo.
How Wheeloh masks plates
- 1
Take the photo
Shoot with the Wheeloh camera and open the publish page.
- 2
Plates are found
Detection runs on the phone. Several plates in one shot? Each one is found.
- 3
Plates are erased
Rather than a blur box, the registration is erased from the plate, so the car still looks clean.
- 4
Then it's uploaded
Only the masked photo is sent. The original plate never leaves your phone.
You stay in control
- Missed one? Mask any plate by hand before posting.
- Your own car? Choose to show the plate if you want it visible.
- A plate is part of the story? A personalised or vintage plate can stay — it's your decision, post by post.
Erased, not blurred
A blurred rectangle draws the eye straight to where the plate was. Wheeloh's on-device engine erases the registration itself, so the photo still looks like a photo of the car, not like a censored document.
It is the same engine on every phone, built into the publish flow of the app: there is nothing to install and nothing to switch on.