Abstract: A method and an apparatus for identifying sensitive information identifier in a privacy-protection manner are provided. The method is performed at a first computing entity which is configured to access a set of license plate numbers and to communicate with a second computing entity which is configured to obtain a license plate number that is captured by one of one or more license plate recognition (LPR) devices distributed in a certain geographic area. The method comprises: receiving a first hash value of the license plate number from the second computing entity; determining that the first hash value matches a second hash value of a plurality of hash values in an association relationship; and generating a notification of an identified license plate number. The association relationship maps a respective one of the plurality of hash values to a corresponding license plate number in the set of license plate numbers.

Abstract: The present disclosure provides methods and systems for performing licence plate matching. A reference list comprising licence plate identifiers is obtained. At least one transformation rule is applied to the licence plate identifiers of the reference list to generate entries forming at least one augmented reference list, and storing the at least one augmented reference list in at least one database. A search request comprising an input licence plate identifier is obtained. The at least one transformation rule is applied to the input licence plate identifier to generate a search list comprising at least one search term. The at least one database is queried with the search list to identify a match between at least one of the entries of the at least one augmented reference list and the at least one search term of the search list. A signal responsive is output to identifying the match.