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Britain to log all vehicle movement
dubbayu_d_40 writes "Using a network of cameras that can record license plates, Britain plans to build a database of vehicle movement for police and security services: rollout begins in March. Can't someone just swap/steal/disable the tracking device? Seems to me just another way to track the average citizen and not those wishing to avoid authorities."
It is only targeted at law abiding citizens.
Between this and data retention they are going to know about everyone we contact and everywhere we go. It would be different if this was only to be used for finding stolen cars or tracking known criminals but they plan on monitoring everyone.
It seems like we are getting closer and closer to that futuristic dystopia and it scares the hell out of me.
I would be interested to see an impact study of this in a couple of years.
I'll guess it'll show to be effective against common crimes, but little else.
I'm opposed to police state measures. I'm not afraid and I see little reason for anyone to be afraid. You have a much better chance of winning the lottery than being killed by terrorism.
The fascists are playing on people's unjustified fears.
Who will guard the guards?
Steal the tracking device...what tracking device? They plan to use cameras, which will record the plates of passing cars. You submitted the article, but didn't read it?
What I found most inane was the notion that a vehicle traveling near another vehicle of interest can be incriminated by association. How did they ever come up with THAT idea?
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Logging might actually feed the police with false information: I mean it's not a hard to make replicas of plates belonging to someone else... someone with the same kind of car.
That way the terrorists or whatever can actually use the system against the police
So now I'm asking, why put this system up in the first place... only to scare people into quiet submission? Seems that way to me...
sig?
Surveillance like this is not bad with the proper checks and balances on access to the data and how it is used. But those checks can erode. Sure the data may not be abused this year or the next, but what about 20 years from now, or 100? Can we really be so certain that our democratic institutions will hold together? Sure, today's leaders might have our trust (barely), but how can we possibly put trust in people who aren't even in power yet?
I, for one, am worried about the world my 3-year-old will come to know.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
I fail to see how this is any worse than, say, a bunch of Americans voluntarily buying vehicles equipped with OnStar that tracks your vechile's movements pretty well by means potentially more insidious than cameras.
Any chance of getting this law to go in a more benign direction? If there's going to be all these cameras anyway, might as well see if the data they pick up can be made public so that abuse of the data is reduced. Gaak. Crazy times we live in!
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
Moving to the U.S.? I suppose you're getting tracked more easily in america than in Europe. We are just starting to use these techniques here, they're already perfecting observation...it's no use running away. Globalization has side effects, and this is one of the worst.
...when the President of the United States has just admitted to authorizing his administration to break the law on at least three dozen separate occasions, thereby repeatedly and flagrantly violating his oath of office, the Constitution, and the Supreme Court's interpretation of such?
...when the Vice President of the United States has declared that his office, and the office of the President, are entitled to ignore laws it finds inconvenient? Even laws specifically written to check their authority?
Why is there not more outrage? Why are impeachment proceedings not beginning this very moment?
Where the fuck did my country go?
transfered data rate for 1 vehicle = 300kbps
so for 10 million
data rate = (10000000 * 300) / (1000 * 1000 ) gbps = 3000gbps = 3.65 GB/sec
What kind of network infrastructure do you think is needed ?
I think they are out of their minds to even think of doing this. They can very well have police man on every block running after the vehicals instead.
This story broke a few days after Pc Beshenivsky was shot and killed in Bradford W Yorkshire, and the police claimed to use new technology to track the get away car. This was the new technology that just happened to be on trial in Bradford and certain areas in London.....
Coincidence????
Define 'wrong'.
Then tell me what happens when the government's definition of 'wrong' changes to encompass a way of life that YOU hold dear.
Would you still be so dangerously compliant?
How hard is it for the police to detect the license plates are fake, now?
From a black'n'white photo taken at 100 MPH? Probably impossible.
Or you mean when they catch him? Well, then they don't need the license plate anymore (and neither does he).
They both got them from Orwell.
In britain, at least they are being up front with what is happening. Here, we have a treasonase president that lies, yet complaigns about the person(s) that told the media that he was lieing and spying. Go figure.
Have you visited the US recently?
You will get finger printed and a your photo taken for their db.
Also, I'd like to insert a cliche: I've got nothing to hide.
Until you get pulled in by the police on a murder charge because you happened to be near a murder scene...
I keep seeing broad laws being passed with people saying "well it's ok for them to be really broad because noone will ever abuse them" and then they get abused _every time_.
For example: does shouting "nonsense" in a political debate make you a terrorist? The government seem to think so. Just days before that happened, the Prime Minister argued that it was ok for the anti-terrorism laws (the same ones used to detain someone for shouting "nonsense") to be so broad because the police would never use them inappropriately.
There are similar examples of abuse of the DMCA, EUCD, PATRIOT Act, etc. I've got nothing to hide either... oh wait, yes I do - I play legally purchased DVDs under Linux and that's illegal.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
99% of police, law enforcement officials and judges are honorable people, at least when they enter the profession. The possibility of corruption and injustice, however, is huge. That's why we have open courts in most Western countries. An official's sense of honor and fairness is our first and best line of defense against injustice but it can't be our only. Allowing the public to see how the government treats its citizens can confirm fair justice is being done. While, sites like TheSmokingGun.com that take people's personal problems and turn them in to enteraining human misery, are deplorable, perhaps more deplorable is what might happen if all court cases were closed. How would we know if equal justice was occuring? We wouldn't.
I certainly don't want my fellow citizen's watching me drive to work, or go to the grocery store; just as I don't want my fellow citizen's reading about my embarrasing run in with the law. But the only way to prove to the citizenry that I got treated fairly by the courts is to make sure its open to all to see.
I suppose this will have to be the same for CCTV in the future, lest some people are monitored by the police and prosecuted over every infraction, and others are allowed to commit infractions with impunity.
Thomas Jefferson When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
Instead of going for the outright conspiracy theory, consider that authorities were just waiting for the right opportunity to spring their plan into action. If there's a high profile shooting, roll out the surveillance...
I'm sure some of this went on with 9/11 - if there's a terrorist attack, roll out freedom limiting changes to the law, attack Iraq, etc...
That said, I hardly like the idea of being under surveillance continually. This has been reported for some time though (http://www.theregister.com/2005/11/15/vehicle_mov ement_database/) I would have expected several dupes from slashdot by now...
Fed up with Labour. I already voted against them in this election, but seeing as my constituency is full of out of work 'scrounging from the government' layabouts who don't get off their fat asses because the government gives them armfulls of cash every month, it was hardly likely that the vote would go any other way.
What pisses me off the most is the usual 'this is being done to try and catch terrorists' - ffs, we've had ONE single Al Qaeda related attack happen in this country so far and THAT was from people that the government never suspected as they were British Muslims. How exactly would license plate tracking catch legal residents of the united kingdom if they so desire to blow themselves up in a public area?!
Why can't they spend the countless billions this service is going to cost to implment where we bloody well WANT and NEED it - in the schools, in the hospitals, on pensions for our old people.
Fucking fuckers. It really makes me mad. The priorities are fucked - this terrorism 'excuse' for taking away our rights is just really starting to piss me off.
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
Possibly the only way these people will be caught is with the new ANPR system. If your car number plate is recognised in two different places within a short time that are far enough apart it would would be impossible without cloning, then it will no doubt be flagged for investigation. That means that both you and the cloner are likely to get stopped. But you are the one with the documents.
Following on from the introduction of drug sensors in sewerage drains, its become necessary to monitor who is taking a dump at any particular time.
Blair: "I want to deny drug users the use of our sewer system, non drug users have nothing to fear." "We need to fight them in the sewers so we don't fight them in the streets."
I think we should move on from the 1984 comparisons. Let Orwell get some rest.
A much more appropriate and unused comparison is "V for Vendetta":
http://www.shadowgalaxy.net/Vendetta/vmain.html
1984 + Dark Knight + Utra Violence = V for Vendetta
"Never trust a computer you can't throw." -- The Mac
What if the system was designed completely different? The system would hold a list of cars that are stolen, uninsured, travelling without a valid MOT or untaxed and distribute that to cameras, which will in turn report if such a car is located. Then if you are a law abiding citizen, paying your car taxes and keeping your car road worthy you have nothing to be afraid of and your movements are not registered.
?SYNTAX ERROR
To counter this it looks like that the British government is looking at RFID tags in numberplates
Naturally, because everyone knows that you can't steal a license plate if it has an RFID device in it, right?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Labour changed how crime was 'counted', its how they hit most of their 'targets'.
Things like this dont get mentioned much beca...look celebritys!!
Slashdotters are a bunch of more than average intelligence; but why do you all lose your heads when a subject involving cars comes up? Just like Joe Public himself does. Is this some corrollary of Godwin's law? There was a saying in the 1800's that in the "free" UK you could do whatever you liked as long as it didn't frighten the horses. Today, it could be re-stated as " ... as long as you don't hold up the traffic". Cars have become Tin Gods.
Does anyone really think that a policeman is going to sit there watching and reporting on where you drive? About 20% of the population would need to be employed on this alone. It isn't practicable. The use of such recordings is to examine them after an incident has occurred, to see what cars were around at the time (and see below).
Then there's the "criminals can swap number plates" argument. Sure, but they have been able to do that for the last 100 years, so what's new? In fact big-time criminals swap cars too. Yet number plates remain one of the most valuable tools in detecting crime and pursuing traffic offences. After a bank robbery at least the police would be able to see what direction the robbers took, and perhaps correlate it with a car (or plate) change.
Then you think you will be convicted if your car is seen "near" a criminal's car. Whan nonsense - some of you seem to have no idea how the law, and law enforcement, work. The police would like to see those "near" the crime as witnesses. Clearly if you happen to be just driving by, you may be a witness. OTOH if you have accomanied the crook's from the scene back to the same East London railway arch then you will have some explaining to do. I have no problem with that. The police do not "convict" people, the courts do that, and convictions have to be made on a coherant structure of evidence, not on one glimpse of a number plate.
Up to 50 years ago in the UK there was a great deal of citizen involvement in law enforcement. If a shopkeeper shouted "Stop Thief", any able bodied men in the area would have downed the thief or mugger and sat on him until the police arrived. In city centres there was a policeman at *every* main corner (intersection in US?) - about 200-300 yards apart. If there was trouble they would blow a distinctive whistle to summon two or three others within a minute or so. These days the thief would sue you, and the policemen have been cut for economy. I live in Bristol (pop 400,000) and understand that on a typical evening there are no more than six policemen on patrol - in cars of course. Yet you Slashdotters think we are a police state! The result is that crime and disregard of traffic regulations are rife. Yet you lot crow that "cameras have not cut crime". The fact is that there are not enough police to deal with everything that can be seen on cameras. The police need all the modern aids they can get. The criminals don't hesitate to use them.
Average city speeds are so far below the speed limit that I doubt this will catch all but the most extreme offenders.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
A more benign direction is what we need. After all, if this happens in America, with our tax dollars, shouldn't we be able to view this information, to hell with the Patriot Act and NSA bullshit? This is OUR MONEY, in OUR AFFAIRS. I think we have a right to know about it.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Some future government will find it has all it needs already in place for dictatorship. And not one element will have been installed for malevolent reasons. All will have been installed from the best of motives.
Family courts meet in secret, names of those appearing before them cannot be published, and there is no appeal from their judgments. It protects children.
Foreigners can be subject to preventive detention without trial. To defeat terrorism.
Anti social behaviour orders can make any act by anyone, and them alone, a criminal offense. We have to do something to restrain people making everyone's life around them a misery.
We will be tracking dysfunctional families, and interventing to help children at risk of future criminal careers. Why wait until it is too late and they have already started?
We have covered the streets with cameras, to defeat street crime. Now we will track all vehicle movements, to deny cars to criminals. Next we will film all faces on all streets, so that we can track down the wanted and the terrorists.
We will have compulsory mental health medication. It will cut down on crimes committed by those in care in the community who stop taking their medication.
We will record all details about an individual on an ID card and will make this card the access point for benefits and medical care. We have to do something about benefit fraud and illegal immigration. And having all medical records available instantly will dramatically improve emergency room care.
I am not being ironic. We really do not have to worry much about this government. The intentions really are good. But the effect is increasingly to make practical liberties dependent on the goodwill of either the government or officials. I don't know what the answer is, but the lesson of history is that you cannot always rely on this, given swings of popular feeling in times of crisis, which may coincide with elections. But this is an argument you never hear in the UK.
That's really the point, isn't it? It doesn't target criminals at all, except insofar as any citizen might be a criminal. By targeting the general population, they greatly increase the number of things to investigate when criminal activity does occur. But criminal activity will be a miniscule portion of what they are actually recording, and more significant criminal activity will take steps to cover its tracks and deflect attention (stolen license plates, etc.), so this will only end up stopping petty criminals, make things safer for organized crime, and give anyone who wants to invade other people's privacy a very convenient infrastructure for stalking, eavesdropping, following, etc. Crap like this only helps real terrorists, and the ones it helps you catch are amateur enough that they would have been caught anyway without this.
Yet gun crime has doubled.
I'm not so sure about that. Assuming for a moment it managed to capture an image of every license plate of every car that went by every capture device, statewide. What kind of database and processing power are you going to need to find "hits", duplicates, fakes, etc.? In addition, you've got to keep info like date, time, and location, for each number, at each capture point.
I think it will be a while (years) before the authorities will get real time results. Until then, this is just another "after the fact" tool that likely won't prevent anything. Great for the courts, lousy for the police and the people supposedly being protected by this system.
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
Actually they do ask. And it's stormingly annoying.
I got crashed into; the only real damage was the rear numberplate was shattered.
But since we were on holiday, and I'd foolishly not taken a huge pile of legal papers with me, I couldn't buy a replacement... They'd only accept the V5 as proof. Guess which document you aren't supposed to carry in the vehicle?
So technically, I'm driving around in an unroadworthy vehicle. That's now an offence for which the car can be seized and destroyed without anything annoying like a "court hearing" to get in the way.
Legit people can't buy numberplates without being inconvenienced, but I bet you buying fake plates is no harder than it ever was.
As a Glasgow cyclist, I regularly encounter car drivers opening doors without looking, pulling out in front of me without looking, overtaking and then cutting me up when they want to turn into a junction ...
When the average driver (perhaps you are an exception), encased in their armoured pollution-generating cage, oblivious to the niceties of human interaction and frustrated by being perpetually stuck in traffic, has so little regard for cyclists and either ignores their rights or (worse) doesn't even see them, don't be surprised that cyclists have little respect for motorists and ride aggressively - it is the safest way.
flossie
Write now. Defend liberty
Substitute Clinton with "the Jews," and you've got Hitler's platform down pat. If things get as bad as we fear, it'll be on the head of nationalistic morons like yourself.
I applaud you on your over-the-top comparisons of Bush to Hitler and your amazing ability to name-call. With such rational arguments, it's amazing how more people in the country don't see things your way. I wonder what it's like to have all the answers? I guess that's just for morons like me and the grandparent commenter to wonder.
This is not a Republican-Democrat issue. It is not a conservative-liberal issue.
Let me guess... You have liberal leanings. You're furious at the state of the country right now. You're willing to make all sorts of nonsensical comparisons of this administration to past atrocities and call people names because you can't understand the "insanity" of what's going on right now. Only problem is, if as the grandparent comment implied, this were Clinton or Carter instead of Satan incarnate (Bush), you'd have no problem with it.
Let me clue you in on what's going on. Democrats aren't performing very well. Largely because of rhetoric like your comment. Because of that, swing voters such as I are voting for Republicans. I know you can't understand this but someone is not necessarily a moron just because they disagree with you. Just like I have voted for many Democrats in the past (including Gore in 2000), some day I hope to vote for a Democrat again. Want to hasten that process? Realize the world is in fact not coming to an end and shut your mouth (likely for the first time in your life).
There is a very real problem at the moment with stolen licence plates. They are desirable to avoid speed cameras, and also the London congestion charge. Many people who find their plates missing - or often just one: most cameras look at the back of the car/bike - don't bother reporting it.
This will, of course, make such thefts more common.
Of course, it would be possible to detect that there is a duplicate plate around, but not easy. For a start, having stolen a plate the thief will have several days' grace until the victim purchases another plate. For normal criminals that would be sufficient for their purposes.
For terrorists - especially suicide bombers - they're not worried about capture and are seldom known to the security services until after their attack, so this technology would be of little use for prevention. The only value it would have is to track their movements after the fact and build maps of their relationships, and I'm far from convinced that this would be terribly useful if the terrorists took a few elementary precautions.
Or I just take a cab to commit my nefarious schemes. Or the bus.
I don't know if you're a Top Gear fan, but I personally can't wait to hear Jeremy Clarkson rant and rave about this latest legislation. I have to say though, I was impressed that your transport minister (Ladyman?) had enough courage to go on the show, knowing full well that Clarkson would berate him on the use of speed cameras in the UK. To be honest, I can't say that I blame him, either. Several towns near me have begun to institute red light cameras, but I feel that instead of catching criminals, they promote unsafe conditions. I've had countless times where I've had to hit the brakes hard and slow down from 50 in a hurry because I was afriad of the cameras. Any time you have somebody making an unplanned stop in such a hurry, accidents seem more likely to happen. Especially when you have some redneck in a jacked up pickup truck riding your bumper as you approach the light.
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
There is a very real problem at the moment with stolen licence plates.
No, this is the very problem for eternity with violating the rights of people by a government.
Outlaw guns, only outlaws own guns.
Outlaw drugs, people will now kill, steal, and do other things to provide a desired good on the black market.
Outlaw abortion, women and their child die from kitchen table abortions.
Oh, well, it keeps us busy I guess.
I get the feeling you're just trying to troll me here, but I'll bite. On the contrary, I always pay full attention to where I am going and my surroundings. In fact, I'm the guy known for pissing his friends off becuase I don't pay attention to them when they are trying to talk to me while driving. I generally ignore my phone when it rings unless I am sitting at a red light.
However, the point I am making is that considering the prevaling situations at a few of these intersections, they didn't lengthen the yellow time enough when installing the light. One particular intersection I pass through every morning is a crossing of two 8 lane roads, one with a 45mph speed limit and the other with a 35mph speed limit. There are no walk signals at this intersection to use as a pre-yellow (as I've always called them). That makes for a large intersection and a decently long stopping distance. I've never had a ticket here, but one thing I've noticed is that many people (myself included) are more prone to use poorer judgement as to whether or not they should stop for the light or continue through.
Furthermore, your assertions of blam when somebody is following too close is rather irrelevant. I never said I was worried about hitting other people when they stopped. I always make sure to leave plenty of distance. It's not me I'm worried about. It's the other jokers on the road who don't pay attention, and an accident, no matter who's to blame, is still an accident and it's something that I would rather not have. Especially if I feel that I am having to stop too quickly in order to not blow through a red light. In the end, I think the addition of red light cameras in regards to accident rates is really a case of six of one or half a dozen of another. Either way, there's a danger of an accident, but only in one scenario can the city make some extra cash on the side.
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.