Sky News Erratic Censorship

Has anybody noticed that Sky News usually pixellate such things as the registration plates on high profile personalities cars? For instance, just now during the 0:00 headlines there was some vt of Rio Ferdinand in his car, with the number plate obscured, but earlier, in eagerness to break the news of his reprimand, they obviously broadcast an unedited rush with his car registration plate visible (if you’re at all interested, you can work it out by knowing the mans initials),

What are the broadcasters’ obligations in doing such things? This is not the first time I’ve seen a number plate pixellated on one channel, for it to completely uncensored on another. I seem noting this when during a specific royal incident where Sky pixellated a registration plate belonging to Prince Charles, and ITV showed it uncensored (it wasn’t personalised either, just in the usual KE51 XXX format)

Hmm... One time on ITV News, they had this report on that football rape thing whatever it was, and they had a graphics clip of some newspapers zooming in on their headlines and as each faded to the other, the black box which was hiding the name of the club faded too quickly and you could clearly see the name of the club on the paper.

Sometimes I wonder why they bother.

But as for the pixelling thing on later edits and not the breaking news vid, I suppose the chances of someone seeing the edited version are higher than seeing the new rushed unedited clip.

Either way, what IS the point of pixelling out number plates? Is it some kind of safety thing incase someone tries to look up a number plate and find details of them or something?