Britain is the World's Surveillance Leader

hax0r_par writes "It seems that in Britain, surveillance on the general public is happening and being recorded 24/7. They are playing the angle that this is allowing for criminal surveillance, which seems justified by the article. But it really is something to take into paranoid consideration now that we've got the technology to make this possible."

Comments

Is it REALLY a bad thing?

[Pete (big-pete)]

I would welcome rather than fear more cameras on the streets in the UK. There is one thing that privacy advocates are forgetting, for there to be an impact on your privacy there needs to be either a person at the other end of the camera, or an automated consequence.

With so many cameras, I doubt there is the manpower or the interest for someone to look at them all, only the ones that are really relevent - where a crime or suspicious behaviour has already been reported. After this the cameras are simply pointing out the facts of the situation, and are we really that afraid of facts and consequences of our actions (if those actions are illegal or suspicious)?

At the moment I feel that I trust the British government enough that this is an acceptable situation, look at the impact the congestion charges (and enforcement cameras) have had on London traffic for example.

-- Pete.

Re:Is it REALLY a bad thing?

[Oddly_Drac]

"There is one thing that privacy advocates are forgetting, for there to be an impact on your privacy there needs to be either a person at the other end of the camera, or an automated consequence."

Nope, us privacy advocates understand this problem, and would like to point out that the camera's deterrent nature falls completely off once the first person has undertaken an illegal action under the camera and *not* faced any kind of punitive action. The majority of cameras are run by third party companies where they can be funded. I happen to live in a town where they spent all the money on the cameras and didn't have enough to staff them. Incidentally, the siteing of the cameras is also illegal under the CCTV extensions to the data protection act. But that's okay, they're the government.

"I trust the British government"

Well, I'll continue to be one of those naive privacy advocates until you shift your arse enough to understand that the government doesn't really care if you trust them or not, and that the time when you don't trust the government might be a few days too late to do anything. Also, it should be pointed out that it's local councils that handle cameras outside of the M25, and they've been models of civic pride. Discounting the special deals they make with developers. Or minor cases of corruption.

Re:Is it REALLY a bad thing?

[mccalli]

After this the cameras are simply pointing out the facts of the situation, and are we really that afraid of facts and consequences of our actions (if those actions are illegal or suspicious)?

Facts as seen by who? Suspicious according to what criteria? Into which context will our activities be placed?

At the moment I feel that I trust the British government enough that this is an acceptable situation, look at the impact the congestion charges (and enforcement cameras) have had on London traffic for example.

Honestly, you trust the government at the moment (I'm also from the UK)? I certainly do not, and by the dramatic plunge in confidence ratings for Labour I'm not alone (not advocating an alternative party, merely pointing out the failings of the one in power).

And yes, let's look at the London congestion scheme. Brought in ostensibly to cure central traffic problems, when revenue undershot expectations they decided to extend the scheme to the suburbs against the wishes of 76% of the inhabitants, and today it's announced they're also raising the price. Trffic problems? Revenue raising.

Also, where do you think the people who used to drive have gone? What's happened to them, what's happened to their quality of life? Or do you feel it is co-incidence that there have been so many Tube failures lately after a surge in passenger numbers and drastic overcrowding on certain lines?

Cheers,
Ian

Re:Is it REALLY a bad thing?

[BenjyD]

I just moved out of London because I was fed up with the noise and traffic. The amount of traffic was insane - most days I could have walked on stationary cars in a traffic jam the entire mile to the tube station without touching the ground.

The number of times I would walk past some poor pedestrian surrounded by paramedics after being hit by a car was insane. Something had to be done about it.

Almost every car you see is just carrying one person. That's just not sustainable. Charging a toll that's really not that great compared to parking charges is a good way for the city to raise money to pay for upgrading public transport, and to make the car drivers actually pay for the vast damage they are doing.

Re:Is it REALLY a bad thing?

[mo^]

On a side note, and in total agreement with your mistrust of out current administration..

During this years peace rally, for some reason the cameras in central london stopped workign for the duration...

this served 2 purposes IMHO..

1, makes it easier for the government to tell us only 500k attended (even police put it at over 1 million),

2, no footage to support any potential claims of police aggression.

Re:Is it REALLY a bad thing?

[Tim C]

Whereabouts did you live? I've lived in London for about 10 years, in various areas, studying and working in Central London the whole time, and I've seen maybe one accident (cyclist hit by a bus).

Sure, I've seen a lot of traffic james - when I lived in Clapham Junction, for example, in the mornings I'd regularly beat the bus walking to the station (10 minutes walk, give or take) even when starting out at exactly the same time (ie it was right there when I started walking), but my overall experience couldn't be more different than yours.

a toll that's really not that great compared to parking charges

That's a good point, and one I've not seen made before - parking fees in Central London are *insane*. You can easily pay 4 or 5 times the congestion charge to park for a day, depending on the area.

Re:Is it REALLY a bad thing?

[SgtChaireBourne]

If a crime happens somewhere close to where you are, and you match the vauge description given by witnesses to that crime? Then you are guilty. At very least, you'll be explaining why you were there, and trying to explain that you didn't do the crime.

The initial suspect in last years assasination of Sweden's Foreign Minsister, Anna Lindh, is a good example of how that can happen even on camera. The press and police caught hold of the first kook running a double life that they could catch on CCTV and hung him out to dry. Granted the character is question wasn't the best character, but pretty much every mistake or failure in his life was trotted out by the media. If his life wasn't ruined before, that did it for sure. Oh. And it turned out that it was actually someone else they saw on the tape.

CCTV is a waste of time and money. The resolution is so bad that it's hard to impossible to recognize even acquantances, except by gait or clothing. I've used CCTV as a guard. I also know some small business owners who use CCTV, despite constantly wondering who has entered the premises. Quite often the potential customer has time to walk back out.

My take on the whole CCTV thing is that it's just the latest scheme to sell expensive things which waste more time and resources.

Re:Is it REALLY a bad thing?

[JimBobJoe]

The UK has a fifth the population of the USA yet has 50 times less gun crime

This statistic is a little crude because it doesn't take into account very very different levels of gun ownership from place to place. For instance, guns are entirely banned in Washington DC, and DC is often the most likely place to be murdered by a gun in the US.

On the other hand, there are places here in rural Ohio which are so well armed that they could take over a latin american country, and they have not had a murder in that county since Ohio's inception (and they are not necessarily unpopulated...they often have a pretty good sized population.)

And of course there are places that are mixed. Much like comparing the gun culture of Switzerland and Israel to the anti gun culture of Japan (former two have low homicide rates, lots of guns, latter has relatively high murder rates, low guns) its the culture that makes the difference, not the guns.

don't worry, the US is catching up

[Slashbot Hive-Mind]

Everyone--from good hearted people to downright argumentative trolls--misses the point on spying.

I don't care about online privacy. I'm not worried about government spooks sifting through my e-mail or web surfing habits and finding out that I like brunettes with long legs, long hair, and almond shaped eyes. It really doesn't concern me. If it were some supercomputer sitting in a back room chewing through e-mail looking for "homicide, suicide, terror, assassinate, secret, password, 9/11" or some other stupid set of keywords or tracing kiddie porn that'd be fine by me. At least until the anti-pr0n people decide that moral righteousness has no bounds and start coming after willing adults with no real sex life and a speedy net connection.

Face it. We live in the real world. People in power let it go to their heads and they often use it for purposes other than those in which it was given to them for.

What I'm worried about is that the guy down the block is an FBI agent. Or CIA. Or NSA. Or some local politician who knows one. One day I'm walking down the street and a candy wrapper drops out of my pocket onto his lawn. Now this guy is such a straight laced Bible thumping tight a__ POS that he uses his political muscle to find out who I am and begin harassing me. "He dropped a candy wrapper on my lawn! He's a litterer! He's no good for society! Besides, I saw him carrying home a six-pack of beer! He must be an alcoholic as well!"

Where's the check and balance? There is none. Who could prove it? No one. Who can stop it? No one.

Echelon, Big Brother surveillance, the Anti-Terror bill. They all suck for the same reason that the Windows registry sucks: there's no way to secure them from people misusing them to hijack the system.

Only when I'm in public

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're in a public area, being recorded is fair game. It's no different than if a store employed security gaurds to watch over you while you shopped, or having a police officier stood on the corner watching everyone go buy. People get all uppity because it's technology, and we all know technology is bad, right?

I was attacked several years ago. Unprovoked; they were drunk, I was drunk. Anyway, the attack resulted in me being partially blinded in one eye. The police never caught the idiot who did it; not that they didn't try, but I couldn't exactly give them a good description. I wish there had been a camera at the spot where it happened. I fucking wish! So don't bleat on about personal privacy, because you've already got it. Unless you're in public.

The cameras aren't necessarily the right way

[tezza]

Six weeks ago I got slashed in the face by a guy with a knife on Chalk Farm Road, in Camden.

I chased him about 600 meters but he ran into a dark council estate and was not that stupid, the guy still had a knife/friends and I had neither.

The police came. Lots of them. Ordinary bobbies and 5 pairs of CID. I retraced the route. There were 10 CCTV camera along the route that I chased him, and NONE of them were pointing the right way to capture this guy, over 600m. The only footage was from a Sainsburies private CCTV that he ran in front of. The police say Camden is one of the most surveilled areas in London.

Just not that bit.

Guns in Britain - I live here

[TimothyTimothyTimoth]

Handguns were banned in Britain after a middle-aged hand-gun enthusiast walked into a school and shot most of the kids. At the time handguns were incredibly rare, mainly owned by handgun sporting enthusiasts, olympic competitors, etc. I don't have the figures but I would reckon one houshold in a thousand had one. Hardly a deterrent to burglars. It has nothing to do with the recent rise in gun crime which is being caused by hand guns illegally smuggled in from the Carribean by drugslords. The rise in gun crime is nearly all crimnal-on-criminal killing. I've not heard of a gun being used in a house burglary.

Yes, it's a bad thing!

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

And of course, when the government controls all the cameras, they can conveniently be switched off for maintenance when, say, a few hundred people are illegally held for several hours by the police on May Day. Then again, this is the government who brought you Iraq's WMD and the "Speed Kills" compaign, and which now wants to set up a national database of terrorist suspec^W^Wbiometric identity information, so of course we should trust them.

In some specific cases, cameras do work well. The congestion charging example wasn't bad, although even in that case, there have already been some quite spectacular abuses. I'd say the cameras in police traffic cars are a better example.

However, those advocating widespread use of cameras should really check the facts. We also have town centre cameras that just push crime into harder-to-police outlying distracts, without actually lowering it. We have speed cameras, which have a far from conclusive track record in increasing road safety but have raised a fortune for government and taken hundreds of thousands off the roads, with numerous local authority idiots cynically repeating the party line in spite of all the informed criticism. We have people being convicted on CCTV "camera evidence" where you can barely even see their faces. Hell, we have a small but significant number of camera operators who turn the CCTV units around to watch girls getting changed in their bedrooms.

The problem with surveillance cameras, like big national databases, is that the system is never perfect. Somehow it never quite brings the benefits it ought to, and yet the abuses (or genuine mistakes) are often widespread, and there is rarely an adequate mechanism in place to protect you if you are unfortunate enough to become a victim. All the while it costs the tax-payer a fortune and runs all the usual civil liberties risks. If Big Brother is watching us, it's about time Big Mother and Father gave him a spanking and told him to behave like a mature adult.