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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.
I can't find anywhere that mentions if the cops have the ability to turn it off or not. I would be very skeptical of any police video that has been "edited" (turning the camera off at certain moments) by the police officer in question.
An example of what I mean: A cop gets called "pig" (the UK version), cop turns off video, kicks the crap out of kid, turns video back on, and then says "I was attacked! You saw him trying to provoke me!" Or whatever, you guys get the idea.
I agree that turning the camera off would look pretty odd, depending on what had happened when the camer was back on...
But really I can't see this as anything but a good thing. A police officer may well be able to keep a little calmer in tense situations knowing everything he does is recorded. If someone is really causing trouble, it helps clear the officer from wrongdoing as well. It's just an extension of cameras they put in every police car for traffic stops...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
With this, the police can't beat you up for no reason and get away with it.
This won't really change a thing in favour of the citizens. It will be used to cover their backs when the police doing things right (which is most of the time), raise a bit of revenue when they sell it off for a britains-dumbest-criminals-type tv show, but don't forget the poor brazilian guy who was executed on the tube last year. The police "lost" the videos for that one, and the tube system is already wall-to-wall with cameras for our "security".
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In all likelihood, the U.S. is also creeping towards a 'Surveillance Society'. Response to terrorism (from the IRA) was one of drivers of the UKs current propensity towards spying on its citizens, fear of Al Queda and Islamic Militants will be our undoing as well. In times of unease and mass fear it's often easy to give up freedoms, but ever so difficult to bring them back. Hopefully Americans will recognize this before we merrily join the UK and strap video cameras to every public park, building, and employee.
Huh? Don't mind me, I'm just the new guy.
all communication is essentially libralizing - so from my point of view, more commnication is always a good thing
surveillence is one kind of communication. the problems that happen is when the information gathered by surveillence is not shared or accessible broadly
in an ideal world, there would be lots and lots of surveillence, including all the interactions and discussions by the public, elected officials, and all the feeds could be viewed by the public
The police turning off their cameras is a problem ( I recall seeing picture from 60s Selma voting marches where cops covered their badge numbers with black take before beating up marchers )
But what if I am wearing a similar camera array?
... is not so much the police doing this as the people letting them.
I still don't understand why they don't just use a single higher res camera, mount it facing upwards, then stick a curved lens above it to give a 360 view all round.
If a cop's got one of these on and he does something out of line, you can just look at the tape, whereas otherwise it might just be your word against his.
The key to a "Panoptic" society is that you can be watched at any time, but not always all the time, and you don't know at any given moment whether you're being watched or not. Thus you turn everyone into paranoid little crazies, easily controlled and turned against one another.
As for just looking at the tape, consider the Brazilian guy the British police shot a while back. Police say he was running and leaping turnstiles, witnesses say he wasn't running and he even stopped to pay his fare. But hey, there's closed-circuit cameras everywhere. Let's go to the tapes.... oh wait, looks like all the cameras were turned off that day! Wow! what a coincidence! (the "non-existent" tapes later turned up)
If the cops are required to log their entire shifts in video to an auditable repository every day, then this tech will serve the public well. Let them take 15 minute privacy breaks every couple of hours, as long as their partner stays on duty, logging their outro/intro from the break.
Cops could file most reports by voiceover annotations of what they videoed. Most of their court and other official testimony could be submitted as sworn video/narration. That would save hours of time doing what they do worst, paperwork, and keeping them engaged in the scene. Offering "eyewitness evidence" with an interpreter. Returning the "word" of the cop to the more reliable status cops want it to be. Offering juries firsthand experience of how cops might have made an honest mistake. And creating a library of suspects useable by the entire justice system, once accepted as evidence on probable cause.
And keeping cops honest. Which protects the good ones, which accounts for 99% of the hours cops work. This system would also capture, or deter, the other 1% that does so much harm. While increasing productivity on the street and on the case, cutting costs and corroborating credibility.
We have to keep in mind that technology will continue to make the distinctions between public and private more operational. So we should exploit our systems for improving the public behavior we expect. While also protecting the privacy we expect, which allows the public to function. So these records should be private, stored for limited durations unless court ordered, and never shared except within explicitly court ordered transactions.
Britain doesn't even have a Constitution, so I don't know how they'll protect that privacy. But after they'd played around with this tech and these rights for a while, we in the US will have even more reason to add a Privacy Amendment to our Constitution to protect ourselves. Combined with improved police protection, we can be more secure. Or, without protections on both sides of the public/private boundry, we'll all be made criminals.
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make install -not war
Anonymity. In the good old days (mostly imaginary) people knew who everyone else was. People had met the police officers before as they cycled past doing whatever it was they did back then. They knew you because they knew your mum and saw you growing up. They knew the local trouble makers, as did everyone else. Collectively troublemakers were kept in place because nobody tolerated it.
Now nobody trusts their police & knows little of them other than what they see in the media (which is largely non-flattering). Why should people trust someone they don't know to be "doing the right thing"(tm)? This doesn't just apply to police officers. Nobody knows whether that guy kicking off on the bus is just a local idiot, or likely to stab them in the face. Even though the "good" people outnumber the crazy 50:1, individually we don't know that. We don't want to be the one to move first & find ourselves without backup.
An example: I was walking through the city centre a while back & there was a large crowd of people. In the middle a police officer was attempted to arrest a woman & handcuff her. She was screaming and kicking at him to get away. Did anyone help? No. They stood and watched.
Another recent post has shown that when faced with the opposite situation, the exact same thing happened. Nobody moved. This is not about respect for police or lack of it, it is about people not being able to decide on the correct action. It's about lack of information to make an informed choice.
Yes, it would be great if the police were implicitly trusted, but nobody works like that. We trust what we know.
Incidentally, I helped the policeman with the arrest. He seemed calmer.
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I have thought of this in the past. Wouldn't 1 camera aimed up at reflective sphere pick up everything 360 degrees around (exept straight up, but the 8 cameras wouldn't get that either). You would need to use a computer to display the image correcly but in the end I think it would work well.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people