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London Police Equipped With 360-Degree Cams
OriginalArlen writes, "In a story so surreal I had to check the primary source, the Register reports that the (London, UK) Metropolitan Police are trying out the use of eight tiny cams, mounted in the police helmet, to provide 360-degree evidence gathering in the event that an officer witnesses a crime. The press release also gives more evidence of the stealth spread of ubiquitous ANPR systems across the country as a spin-off 'benefit' to the London car congestion-charging scheme, which is likely to be rolled out across the country in the next few years. Are we already living in a Panopticon Society?" According to this report from the information commissioner for Great Britain, yep.
The camera's are NOT 360 degree.
Article with picture
From BBC : "The average citizen in the UK is caught on CCTV cameras 300 times a day."
>Response to terrorism (from the IRA) was one of drivers of the UKs current propensity towards spying on its citizens
No, it isn't. We have far greater problems in our country with our drunken citizens on a saturday night than with terrorism.
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
Glorified strip malls? Depends on what city, I guess, but NYC, Boston, Philly, and DC certainly don't really fit that definition. As far as paying tolls, many Interstate highways are toll-free since the stipulation is that in order to get Federal funding for the construction of a *new* Interstate highway, the road must be toll-free. This has been true since the early 1960s - most of the tolled roads are earlier freeways, built in the 1930s to the 1950s. But even then, the tolls are not particularly onerous for passenger cars. In NJ, the Turnpike is about $4 end-to-end (about 120 miles), and some of the tolls can be bypassed by using a parallel freeway. I think the Garden State Parkway (coastal north-south route) is about the same for a ~180 mile trip. Tolls to enter New York City from NJ are usually $6 for cars and $5 for motorcycles. They can even be thought of as a congestion charge of sorts, but less expensive.
And our Interstate highways are pretty straight and very suitable for high speeds. Average speed even in congested NJ is on the order of 75-80 mph. Probably higher out West.
-b.
Yeah. Tell that to Josh Wolf.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
As someone who installs CCTV (goobye karma) I've held my tongue on quite a few occasions here, but you can 'stop' all this.
The data protection laws introduced about two years ago give you a few few tools. Firstly, any CCTV recording OR monitoring system in public places must be announced (this includes places that you are invited into automatically, like shops etc), the announcing sign must state 3 things, that there is a monitoring/recording system in use, for what purpose it is there (and the purpose of monitoring/recording doesn't cut it), who is in charge of administering the system and how to contact them.
Now the important thing here is the 'contact them', under UK data protection laws you have the right to claim your digital image, send the 'administrators' (the only ones who have legal access to the system to review/archive recordings) a letter explaing where you were, a cheque for £10 (the reasonable fee they are allowed to charge), what day you were there (don't be to precise), proof of address (utility bill etc) and a 'valid for passport' style photo. It is then their job to search through the footage looking for you, extract the right footage, and here's the kicker, remove the faces of anyone else on that footage before they send it to you or else they are in breach of the data protection act (which I can assure you most CCTV administrators do not have the equipment/skills to do).
The best way to use these rules are to hang about outside busy tube stations in rush hour, permanently on camera, and don't stop moving, that would make masking other faces too easy.
The police use camcorders at a lot of large public demonstrations, this is also a good time to use these laws, especially if you were not there.
Do not underestimate the power of the data protection act, people have used it to force documents out of MI5, and one guy got of a charge of armed robbery, as most of the case rested on CCTV evidence that was ruled inadmissible because the shop keeper had no signage up.
I read about this story a couple of days ago in the Metro newspaper... complete with a photo of the headset. It's not 360, and each officer only gets one camera. The force has just been given 8 of them, for 8 people to wear. Hmm, "you couldn't make it up"? Apparently, OriginalArlen, you did.
If it's part of the countrywide APNR network, it's 2 years in a central database, or up to 6 years if part of a log thats used in evidence in a court case - even if you're not the person in court,
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.