2003 Big Brother Awards

MacRonin writes "Privacy International today announced the winners of the 2003 Big Brother Awards. One of the judges, estimable Dr Ian Brown of the Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR), writes: "It was alternatively amusing and depressing to be one of the judges for these awards. RIP and data retention played a large part in our deliberations..." ... Read more at The Register (UK) - 2003 Big Brother Awards: The Winners. and Political News from Wired News - Blair Tagged as Privacy Threat."

Comments

Privacy Now More Than Ever

[John Leeming]

Given the upcoming Patriot Act II and current laws, it's good to know that there are those still willing to say the Emperor has no clothes.

It's a shame....

[Lord_Slepnir]

It's a shame that the awards are for the UK only. Then again, it would be boring to see an awards show where every award either went to John Ashcroft or the MPAA / RIAA.

Re:It's a shame....

[TopShelf]

Oh come on, the credit-reporting industry has got to be a major contender here. They have a huge impact on the financial lives of American consumers, but their data is notoriously unreliable (at added cost to consumers) and its use is clouded in obfuscation (i.e. credit score calculation). Add to that the increasingly broad use of that information (like insurance rates), and you've got an odds-on perennial favorite...

Amateurs, all amateurs

[burgburgburg]

A.G. John Ashcroft and crew: "Stop having thought crimes and we won't have to arrest you."

Across-the-Pond Comparison

[onthefenceman]

I'd be interested to see a comparison of civil liberties between the UK and the US. Video surveillance of public parks and streets is astoundingly common in England, as are photo-radar traffic cameras. However, based on what I've read I think the US has the upper hand in communications surveillance of net traffic and phone lines.

Thank goodness

[Linux-based-robots]

Thank goodness I live in the States where we don't have to worry about privacy issues! :P

Worst public servant

[Neophytus]

Worst Public Servant: London Mayor Ken Livingstone, whose traffic-reduction plan relies on a network of 700 surveillance cameras posted around the capital that photograph car license plates to enforce a new fee for driving during rush hour.

I would disagree. Livingstone's system visibly cut traffic (certainly on the first day, since then the pictures havn't been plastered all over TV) and anyone can note down your registration plate anyway. In central London you cann't have ten lane wide payment barriers, nor can you widen roads or build flyovers. Something needed done, and this seemed drastic but as far a I can see it was one of the only viable options.

Security vs. Freedom

[Webmoth]

Security and Freedom are mutually exclusive. When the Guvmint proclaims "we need to do this in the name of security," you can bet your freedoms will be trampled in the process.

Re:Security vs. Freedom

[aero6dof]

I would argue that Security and Freedom are not exclusive at all. Furthermore, in the long run, freedom is the best guarantee of security.

Re:Security vs. Freedom

[fatcat1111]

While this is in practice generally true, this is actually false. Some good reads on the subject: Simson Garfinkel's Database Nation, and The Transparent Society by David Brin.

From the former:
Many people today say that in order to enjoy the benefits of modern society, we must necessarily relinquish some degree of privacy. If we want the convenience of paying for a meal by credit card, or paying for a toll with an electronic tag mounted on our rear view mirror, then we must accept the routine collection of our purchases and driving habits in a large database over which we have no control. It's a simple bargain, albeit a Faustian one.

I think this tradeoff is both unnecessary and wrong. It reminds me of another crisis our society faced in the 1950s and 1960s -- the environmental crisis. Then, advocates of big business said that the poisoned rivers and lakes were the necessary costs of economic development, jobs, and an improved standard of living. Poison was progress: anybody who argued otherwise simply didn't understand the facts. Today we know better.

Re:traffic laws enforced by cameras

[geekoid]

SO your sitting at a stop light and notice the trck approaching you from the rear is not slowing down. As a intelligent being, you move into the intersection and get out of the way.

Now the automated system is sending you a ticket. One that will be near impossible to get out of, because, you know, computers don't make mistakes.

A human being can make a judge ment and say, perhaps they shouldn't be ticketed.

How many times will the system ticket you if you are speeding? If I am speeding, I get a ticket and then slow down. An automated system would ticket me over and over and over.

So now an automated system is trusted more then you are.
This is already a problem in stores. You are leaving a store, then suddenlt some infernal machine is beeping and flashing. So now you are in a position of proving your innocences to the shop keeper*. as a personal note, I will not stop because of that, nor will I let anybody stop me and check my bag as I leave a store. I urge others to do the same.

Traffic cameras are only used as an alternate tax.