The location of every police car-tracking camera in Britain could be revealed following a landmark legal ruling today.

More than 10,000 covert Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras  photograph and record the registration numbers of 14 million motorists in the UK every day.

The information is used against a national database to track criminals and has proved vital in tackling criminals.

But police forces across the country could be forced to reveal their locations following a Freedom of Information Act request by a member of the public.  In a test case, Devon and Cornwall Police refused to disclose the data but was overruled by the Information Rights Tribunal.

Police chiefs have vowed to fight the ruling in the Court of Appeal but fear every force in Britain will be forced to comply if they lose the case.

A senior officer with the Devon and Cornwall force said: 'ANPR has been a fantastic weapon in our fight against crime.  It has been a huge success, particularly in taking millions of pounds worth of drugs off the streets.

'If we are forced to reveal their locations, then other forces will have to follow, and that raises serious issues particularly around counter terrorism. Giving away that level of detail is frankly ridiculous. It will put the public at risk.'

The technology was recently used to jail a major drugs gang which had supplied more than a million pounds worth of cocaine.

The smuggling ring, which had members from Devon, Norfolk, London and Romford, only unravelled after one of the gang was 'pinged' by an ANPR camera in 2009 for failing to insure his car.

Courier Christopher Leader was stopped by officers on the M5 in Devon in August 2009, when police found five kilos of cocaine worth £250,000 in his car. 

Steven Mathieson, news editor at Guardian Government Computing, submitted an FoI request to four police forces to release data on the location of the cameras back in July 2009.

third body has been found within a few hundred yards of where two men were found dead by the side of a road.

West Yorkshire Police said the body was discovered by firefighters on Holme Lane, in the Holme Wood area of Bradford, just after 6.30am on Thursday.

The discovery was made across fields from where the bodies of two unidentified young men were found dumped on New Lane, near Tong, on Tuesday evening.

Advertisement >>

A spokesman said it is too early to say whether the deaths are linked.

The spokesman said officers were called to the scene at 6.31am. He confirmed the call was made by firefighters who had been dealing with a fire in the area.

"We're currently working to establish the circumstances surrounding it. We're examining whether there is any link between the incidents. At this stage we're unable to establish any connection."

Detectives launched a murder inquiry on Wednesday after the bodies of two men were found dumped on New Lane, Bradford, just a mile or two from the suburbs of the city. The bodies were discovered by a passing motorist shortly before 10.30pm on Tuesday.

The two victims were aged in their mid 20s to 30s and officers are trying to establish their identities. No weapons have been recovered and detectives would not comment on reports that the two men had been beaten.

The area where the first two bodies were found is open countryside - green meadows with pockets of woodland - just a mile or two from the suburbs of south Bradford. Locals speculated that the bodies may have been dumped.

Alice Avery said: "It's a quiet area. So you just don't know what goes on at night-time round here, do you?"