The Municipality of Dumangas , a progressive concerns is the prevalence of illegal vehicle plates, town in Iloilo, faces growing challenges in monitoring including expired, tampered, mismatched, and vehicle activities, particularly in identifying unregistered, unregistered plates, which compromise public safety and tampered, or illegal vehicle plates. Manual vehicle hinder effective traffic management. Relying solely on inspections at checkpoints are often limited by human error, ineffic iency, and delays. To address this issue, this manual inspection methods at checkpoints has proven study proposes SECURE - SCAN: License Plate inefficient, time - consuming, and vulnerable to human Recognition for Detection of Illegal Vehicle Plates, an error, especially with the increasing volume of vehicles automated system aimed at improving public safety and traffic security within the locality. passing through Dumangas’ roads and highways. SECURE - SCAN utilizes high - definition To address this issue, this study introduces cameras strategically placed in key areas such as Secure - Scan, an automated License Plate Recognition municipal checkpoints, entry points, and public (LPR) system designed to detect illegal vehicle plates establishments. Captured images undergo preprocessing using advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and optical for contrast enhancement and plate localization. The character recognition (OCR) technologies. Secure Scan characters on the plates are extracted using Optical incorporates YOLOv8, a state - of - the - art deep learning Character Recognition (OCR) techniques and matched model, for real - time li cense plate detection, coupled with with the existing official registry of Land Transportation Tesseract OCR for accurate text extraction. The system Office (LTO)records. Any plate numbers that are uses an ESP32 - CAM module to capture vehicle images, unregistered, tampered with, or do not conform to processes them with OpenCV, and compares the stan dard formats are flagged as illegal. recognized plates against a local SQLite database of This technology - driven approach enhances the registered vehicles. capability of local authorities to conduct efficient, accurate, and real - time monitoring of vehicles entering By automating plate verification, Secure - Scan and moving within Dumangas. Automating vehicle plate aims to enhance traffic law enforcement in Dumangas, recognition and verification to minimize human error, reducing dependence on manual checks, minimizing reduce inspection times, and promote road safety and law errors, and ensuring faster, more accurate detection of compliance. The system provides real - time notifications illegal vehicle plates, contributing to safer and more and reports for quick decision - making and rapid orderly roadways. response, ensuring safer roads, regulated vehicle operations, and improved public ord er and security. II. METHODOLOGY