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Watching a special on the BBC about survelance in the UK. It's well known that almost all towns in the UK have extensive police run CCTV systems monitoring everything that goes down in the streets.

Now they're talking about face recognition and body recognition technology to know exactly who is walking down the street.

AND shotgun mics to tape what you say walking down the street.

And people support it?

Are attitudes really that different?

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Watching a special on the BBC about survelance in the UK. It's well known that almost all towns in the UK have extensive police run CCTV systems monitoring everything that goes down in the streets.

Now they're talking about face recognition and body recognition technology to know exactly who is walking down the street.

AND shotgun mics to tape what you say walking down the street.

And people support it?

Are attitudes really that different?

face recognition is already present and in use, but not sure about the mics.

I am surprised china isnt using such a thing already. But with that many people, you'll need a bigger set of thought police, for sure.

I don't know about the rest of the U.K., but the one time I went to London, I counted more cameras in one subway station then we could find around the entire MI6 building. (altough they porbably just hide them better).

personally, I'm not sure how happy I would be about stuff like this. here in germany it's still under disscussion.

The BBC are no longer a reliable source of media. I've known THAT since they squashed any mention of the democracy protests in front of Parliament last month.

So, really, nobody wants the CCTV crap, they're just putting it in regardless. I, for one, will be among the first to cover my face and start pulling them down. This has gone on long enough.

Skorpion wrote:The BBC are no longer a reliable source of media. I've known THAT since they squashed any mention of the democracy protests in front of Parliament last month.

The newsworthiness of your so-called protests notwithstanding, after American news, I'm sure you understand why I check the BBC several times per day to see what's going in in places that =/= America.

bigchris1313 wrote:

Skorpion wrote:The BBC are no longer a reliable source of media. I've known THAT since they squashed any mention of the democracy protests in front of Parliament last month.

The newsworthiness of your so-called protests notwithstanding, after American news, I'm sure you understand why I check the BBC several times per day to see what's going in in places that =/= America.

I tried watching CNN to have background noise while I'm painting. Really the test pattern is less biased and more entertaining.

bigchris1313 wrote:

Skorpion wrote:The BBC are no longer a reliable source of media. I've known THAT since they squashed any mention of the democracy protests in front of Parliament last month.

The newsworthiness of your so-called protests notwithstanding, after American news, I'm sure you understand why I check the BBC several times per day to see what's going in in places that =/= America.

Did you dress as Indians and dump tea into the harbour? If not, how can you expect anyone to pay attention to you?

I like Al Jazeera.

We were going to get ID cards too, but that may have been ruled out due to recent data loss issues. I don't really mind the CCTV all that much, dunno why, I'm usually pretty righteous.

I guess I'll chime in since I have an opinion on the matter living in London and all.

There are the usual negatives with CCTV - invasion of privacy, being on camera hundreds of times per day, cost to install and maintain could be spent on police and other real security, etc. But since you ask why we put up with it...

The first thing that makes it not so bad is that we have a great law called the data protection act. This has lots of nice things for privacy but the CCTV relevant aspect is that ANY camera pointing at public space owned by anybody must register with the police, and upon request from ANYONE the owner must provide footage to them for any time that is requested and available for no more than £10/£15 IIRC. Almost all public cameras only store footage for 2 days right now due to storage costs so if you do something and get away with it after 2 days then hurrah, but obviously storage time will increase as the technology improves. One fun side effect of this is that the police always turn off the CCTV for 'maintenance' when there are large protests so that they can avoid any issues from overzealous riot police being caught on camera (although I have not heard of any such police in recent times).

The second key point is that it works enough that the government are still putting loads more cameras in. A while back there was the brixton bombing (1999) and they managed to catch the nazi after 2 bombs because he was the only person on CCTV in the area of both bombings. Without CCTV it would probably have gone on a lot longer. When the washington sniper was doing his thing people here were quite amazed that the police there had no CCTV to track down the key vehicle in the case. I probably dont even need to mention the almost instant mugshot/IDing of the July 21st attempted suicide bombers who were caught thanks to CCTV images of them as well. Terrorism is fairly uncommon though and is not a great excuse for CCTV alone so I'll add the best kind of evidence... anecdotal. On one instance late at night in a crappy town centre a group of about 10 rowdy drunk teenagers starting following me and the (now) wife and started getting a bit aggressive, throwing things at us and shouting threats. I stopped, turned around and shouted 'Oi, you know you are on about 4 public CCTV cameras right now?' and the situation was instantly diffused with no violence or hassle. There have been a few times when there have been large groups of drunk people being boisterous but I have not had any paranoia from having to walk past them knowing that there are cameras to keep an eye on things and that most non-morons will leave you alone if this is pointed out to them*. On the few occasions when I have not wanted to be on CCTV, it is pretty easy to plan your route to avoid it if you know the area and dont live in the heart of a tourist heavy spot like westminster. There are even websites out there that will allow you to map your journey to avoid it if you wish.

CCTV is rarely actively monitored in the UK due to the poor nature of humans for multiple screen viewing, and is generally just recorded and used by the police later for evidence and additional information in the event that crimes are committed. If you suspect someone has been abusing the use of CCTV then you can request the footage under the data protection act and in most cases that will either get you the footage or start making people suspicious of the operator of a particular set of cameras. Some cameras are monitored at key times like club closing times and pub closing times to keep an eye on alcohol related violence and get the police to where they need to be as soon as something starts to flare up. One other argument people tend to trot out in favour is asking what the difference would be to having hundreds of extra policemen watching the streets from the streets.

Does the rest of the world have problems with shops that have CCTV? Do you avoid all shops with CCTV for the same privacy reasons - they dont even have the boundaries of the data protection act in the US, or is it more like the UK public CCTV situation where the usefulness of the shop outweighs the annoyance of CCTV. (somewhat argumentum ad hominem there )

I hope I have shed some light on the general British attitude to CCTV. It is not something people really care about either way as the good tends to balance out the bad to become something that people dont really feel very strongly one way or the other about (kind of like the monarchy). If there was widespread abuse of CCTV then the scare-happy media would most likely happily shred it apart unless it somehow served them specifically.

* This makes it sound like I go to many crappy areas or am overly paranoid. It has really only happened from being out at pub closing time on saturday nights perhaps three times and it was a few years ago too.

The main reason why there are so many CCTV cameras in the UK is because it is an effective way of transferring public money to private companies while making tax payers feel good about it.

Up until recently, CCTV has been well behind its promises in terms of crime solving because whenever the police go to get the tape it has been wiped or the camera was off or something. Thereby murders committed in underground stations have gone unsolved.

Things are changing slightly in that respect since nowadays the recording on the better systems is done onto hard disk and a lot more footage can be retained at better quality.

Even so the sheer volume of footage available means it will only ever be used if either there is a major crime and the police take the relevant footage, or if the operator happens to notice something by luck.

The chances of this go down rather thanks to the huge numbers of cameras in operation. For example, I go through Piccadilly Circus Tube station twice a day. In my short movement up or down between the street and the track, I appear on about 30 cameras, along with hundreds of other users. There's just no way a guard is going to notice something happening unless it is a big incident.

Even without that cameras have not proved very effective. There are some good videos on YouTube of gangs of yobs or crims attacking or stealing security cameras.

As regards face recognition, it doesn't work yet. It may do in the future, though I have my doubts.

Number plate recognition works pretty well, enabling the London COngestion Charge to work automatically. This also forces non-law-abiding citizens to use false numberplates or other dodges to avoid paying.

And there we have it in a nutshell. Public CCTV is essentially a rip-off forced on the tax payer for his supposed safety, on the basis that if you have nothing to hide why should you be worried. But it is basically ineffective in the kind of crime fighting it is meant to do.

CCTV is primarily a means of watching the public for the benefiit of the state, not for public protection from crime. Civil liberties groups have good reason to be worried between this and vague laws that give the police extraordinary powers to stop or detain.

As for the BBC, it's just a mouthpiece for New Labour. Its better coverage abroad as the BBC is still needed to be a trusted news source. Most of the news control we have is directed internally. the governemnt is less worried about foreigners learning our secrets but the electorate finding out what is going on. It stinks. The first term of office of the Blair government had IIRC more official censorship notices* than all the Thatcher and Major years combined. In a time of peace without having active problems from Falklands War, Soviet Union, Iraq and/or IRA to contend with.

* I dont know where to verify this but you can get that figure as public information, what was censored of course isn't.

Frankly I do not think it is the governments job or business to try and monitor people that much. The government is there to make sure we are safe and protect our freedom, not to spy on us and peer into everything that we are doing.

To be semi-fair, they are not. they have no need and no resopurces for such a mammoth task. But if things do go wrong the infrastructure is there.

Crime, low monitoring priority.
Terrorism is a much higher monitoring priority, however dis-illusion with the government is the highest.

New Labour will go a long way to ensure the British people are kept compliant, mostly be apathy ignorance but by media control when needed. CCTV is nothing on its own, the new police laws make the other half. These laws make the civil rights changes in the US since 9/11 look very relaxed in comparison, but they are not often used to their full effect, just reinforced. However even now while incomplete the UK government could easily turn the nation into a legalised dictatorship - and that is NOT an exagerration.

The biggest single worry - so far - was the Mental Health Act 2007, its bad enough as it is, had the Lords not objected it would have been worse. I saw the pre reform white paper and the powers it would give the police are frightening. What passed through is only marginally less bad.

The police can come to your door and take you away without any right to legal representation if in the policemans sole opinion you are deemed to have a 'mental disorder' a term which isnt classified or properly categorised. You will be processed to a 'mental health professional' who is an appointee of the local council or the Home Secretaries department, as there is no actual arrest, just detention, there are no legal access rights or provision of representation. There was to be no appeal against what he recommends (the Lords changed that) but even so the MHP doesn't have to justify his 'professional opinions' i.e. no tested proof of illness is required to be made and the opinions of anyone else, including your doctor are irrelevant if they clash with the assigned mental health professional's opinion on the matter.
Now here comes the interesting part, who can be an MHP? The answer is anyone who is accredited as one - vague enough, more interesting is who cannot be an MHP, the answer to that is a 'medical practitioner'. So the power to detain someone as mad indefinately without any legal recourse has ben TAKEN OUT OF THE HANDS OF DOCTORS and may be given to appointees of the local government or Home Secretary! In earlier drafts there was no form of appeal from the 'opinions' of the MHP, which didn't need to be justified to anyone but themselves and were indefinate. Now at least there are time limits if not formally renewed. Furthermore they could put restrictions on a persons release including activities they cannot participate in, places they cannot visit, and places where they must reside and people they must allow to attend to them. Failutre to do so may result in immediate indefinate detention without further warning.
The opportunities to abuse this for Stalinist type control are enormous.

Now a shrink I spoke to about this law while researching told me that the reason a doctor cannot become an MHP is presumable to prevent doctors being judge jury and executioner in mental health cases. However the law is so vague that while this may be how it applies with the geniunely dangerously ill, like many of the other vague laws it can be abused.

If you think correct wording for the RAW is important in a Codex, its damn important in a law, and the 'RAW' states quite clearly that what I said above can happen. Allowing for the abuses used because of the bad wording of the RAW of the Prevention of Terrorism Act I have cause to worry, which have already had proven instances of abuse. New Labour is many things but sloppy, careless and incompetent are not included. Once maybe, but not with hindsight, yetso many control laws are vague like this and yet noone seems to notice.

Orlanth wrote:The biggest single worry - so far - was the Mental Health Act 2007, its bad enough as it is, had the Lords not objected it would have been worse.

Unelected Wise Landed Nobility: 1

Representatives of the Ignorant Masses: 0

The Lords do a good job, far better than the credit given to them.
Interesting thing is that now the hereditaries are gone (for the wrong reasons) Blair assumed he had control, all he did was legitimise the remaining peers further. He filled the house with cronies, elevating more peers than any PM in history. However once elevated to the house the peers he thought would back him turned to the normal duty of a Peer: to protect the people from parliament by revising and scruinising laws. I have heard Blair got angry because his appointees dared oppose him, and is the primarly reason the government wants to abolish the house altogether.

You see once someone puts on ermine for the first itme they are no longer answerrable to those who put them there, and suddenly they develop a conscience. To anyone outside Downing street its amusing, if they realise at all.


Anyway. I am going to back away from this topic now. I come to Dakka Dakka to talk about gaming. Never got into a politics before, and I must stop before I sully the boards.

Wasn't mental health a reason cited for some of the earliest camps in the
German regime where they got rid of German undesirables?

bigchris1313 wrote:

Orlanth wrote:The biggest single worry - so far - was the Mental Health Act 2007, its bad enough as it is, had the Lords not objected it would have been worse.

Unelected Wise Landed Nobility: 1

Representatives of the Ignorant Masses: 0

The Lords have done a very good job protecting the liberties of the people in the UK. I am a prole myself, I have got no love for the Gentry of this country, but the second house has historically done a fine job. It's a shame that they have somewhat discredited themselves (in my eyes) over their persistent, stubborn, and ultimately doomed, defence of fox hunting (even if they fight something with all of their powers, at the end of the day they cannot force anything upon the House of Commons, which still has the ultimate power in these isles).

We are truly down this road in Brisbane. Cameras everywhere. I don't like it at all, as I feel it is invasive.

At least our police do not carry Machine-guns, so I guess we aren't that badly off.......

Time to start wearing a Guy Falks mask everywhere you go?

Jazz is for Losers wrote:

bigchris1313 wrote:

Orlanth wrote:The biggest single worry - so far - was the Mental Health Act 2007, its bad enough as it is, had the Lords not objected it would have been worse.

Unelected Wise Landed Nobility: 1

Representatives of the Ignorant Masses: 0

The Lords have done a very good job protecting the liberties of the people in the UK. I am a prole myself, I have got no love for the Gentry of this country, but the second house has historically done a fine job. It's a shame that they have somewhat discredited themselves (in my eyes) over their persistent, stubborn, and ultimately doomed, defence of fox hunting (even if they fight something with all of their powers, at the end of the day they cannot force anything upon the House of Commons, which still has the ultimate power in these isles).

They should have done that....and I'm saying this as an American. I have always wanted to experience a fox hunt the way the Brits do it. There is just something about the clothes, the horses, everything that just sort of speaks to me.

Ok, so how exactly is it different to have a camera on a street corner, with a cop watching it, or a beat cop on a street corner.

I'm a Brit, but I live in Chicago, and have for ages. I see beat cops downtown here all the time. They're just walking around (or riding horses, or buggys, or sitting in patrol cars). Their job is simply to observe and intervene if needed.

But, one cop can only monitor so much space by himself. All the CCTV systems do is give the cop whose watching technology to increase his effective radius.

If I'm standing on the corner of a public road, I have no reasonable expectation of privacy. If there's a camera there, so what - how is it different than if a cop was driving by? Or sitting in an unmarked car across the street.

I don't understand the opposition to the system. I wish they'd implement it over here. It actually saves tax payer dollars, as you need less manpower to monitor the same amount of space that you're already monitoring with beat cops.

CCTV is one reason im glad i don't live in england.

Thread is being locked due to thread necromancy.