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French City To Use CCTV For Parking Fines

Posted by Soulskill on from the nos-rendimos dept.

horza writes "The city of Nice, France is rolling out 626 CCTV cameras throughout town, giving it one of the highest levels of surveillance in the world (1.8 cameras per 1000 inhabitants). The usual rhetoric was given — that they will be used solely for reducing violent crime — but the city will now begin sending out parking tickets solely based on the CCTV video evidence."

8 of 297 comments (clear)

  1. Videoprotection by bedonnant · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is the doing of Christian Estrosi, mayor of Nice and minister of Industry, whose education consisted in winning motorcycle races. He's at the forefront of applying repression at the city level, and actually wanted to fine mayors of other cities where crime is not sufficiantly fought in his eyes. Funny coming from the guy in charge of the city where the Russian Mafia is rampant... anyway the summary has is wrong, in terms of politically correct French. The French government wants everyone to stop using the ugly word 'videosurveillance' and instead opt for the friendly, wonderfully orwellian 'videoprotection'.

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    ~~~ Paf. Le chien.
  2. London by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 5, Informative
    We have this in London, and I personally have had ticekets while asking for directions, waiting to do a U-turn and while waiting to reverse into a parking bay.

    You do not want this ... It is worse than living in East Germany under the Stazi. (or similar to the "great Terror" after the French revolution)

    --
    Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    1. Re:London by Galvatron · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Rule of thumb: if parking tickets are a big grievance for you then your life isn't as bad as living in East Germany under the Stasi.

      This is obviously true. No one will be executed, tortured, or held in secret prisons in Nice for parking violations. However, the GP's point isn't totally trivial either. Certainly a surveillance apparatus is being implemented that is vastly greater than anything envisioned by the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, and it is being aimed at punishing citizens who generally are trying to live their lives without harming others. Yes, people are breaking laws (usually, though there's plenty of stories of systems implemented in such a way that they catch even law abiders), but we all have occasions where we need to stop in a bus zone for a minute to drop something off, or realize that we left our change in our other pants and can't pay the meter. The notion of having eyes on us at all times, watching for us to make the smallest mistake and pouncing on it, does contribute to a sense of alienation, a feeling that government is working against us, rather than for us. Working for the citizens, rather than against them, is supposed to be the very essence of what separates liberal democracies from totalitarian autocracies. Just because a government demonstrates its hostility through annoyance, rather than brutality, doesn't mean it's not a disturbing attitude.

      --
      "The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
  3. Re:Revenue Collection by Ponyegg · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm part of a the NTBPT (No to Bike Parking Tax) demo group in London which protests at having to pay parking fees in Central London. The UK law stipulates that councils are not allowed to simply charge for parking as a revenue stream, there has to be some benefit to the local population/businesses such as relieveing congestion, and as bikes don't cause congestion we're currently fighting Westminster Counsil in the European Courts of the legality of the charges. http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/

    Westminster Council also employs CCTV cars that roam the streets of London spying on the populace & catching any "traffic violations", but we've caught on to that and now we follow the CCTV cars and we film them & alert motorists about them and occasionally post evidence of them committing their own traffic violations to Youtube :-)
    http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23883049-bikers-blow-cover-of-cctv-cars-snooping-on-drivers.do
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHOazGC7alk
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QNfeL71ojg
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cztfKB8SGCI
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsZb9jIfGv0

    If you don't like what your elected memebers are doing then 1] try and vote them out, 2] organise, protest & demonstrate 3] take direct action to hinder their effectiveness (all legal and above board direct action mind.

  4. Re:Not so Nice by KDR_11k · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A camera in a house turns it from private space into public space where common morality demands different behaviour. CCTV in public spaces has significantly less impact.

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    Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
  5. Re:Not so Nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A better analogy would be to say every citizen now has to have a personal overseer follow them 24/7 and observe all their movements and actions within public spaces - any law-abiding citizens have no grounds for complaint, therefore if you do complain you must be a criminal. That's tantamount what this law plus GGP post are saying. Most people don't mind being observed in public, but they would mind their entire day being observed by one set of people - this technology enables such observation and its justification is the sledgehammer-to-crack-a-nut excuse of preventing illegal parking. Here's an idea - deputise the public to report illegal parking and give them a percentage of the fee for every ticket issued based on their information, that way you raise public awareness, make efficient use of your limited pool of wardens (since they're responding to specific information not just wandering at random) and everyone else gets to hang onto the last shreds of their privacy.

  6. Re:Not so Nice by teh+kurisu · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oh the irony.

  7. Re:Revenue Collection by cptdondo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You are suffering from the failed logic that government actually acts rational.

    In fact, the revenue streams won't decrease your tax burden, instead they just give raises to employees, elected officials, find a way to work bonuses or more/better benefits into the public sector, and end up spending more.

    You need to take off your teabagger hat. I work in the public sector, and I tell you that the last thing an elected official will do is give public employees a raise. We advertised for a traffic engineer; even in this horrendous job market it took 3 months to get 4 qualified applicants. Public sector pay is, for the most part, crap. I get about 75 cents on the dollar compared to private sector work. Most public service employees I know have some sort of side income - rentals, side business, etc - that increase their take home pay.

    Government is funny that way, they think once the money is in their hands, they have to spend it.

    You're right there, but the money is spent on pet projects, pie in the sky dreams, and stuff like that. They spend the money on what gets them re-elected, what YOU demand they provide YOU. They don't spend a dime on their own employees unless they have to. Any politician that would champion raises to staff, either as pay increases or better benefits, would not be re-elected next time around.

    Once the economy improves, there will be a huge exodus of qualified public sector employees into the private sector, to the detriment of public service. Heck, I'm on my way out.

    What happens is that once all the good people leave for better paying jobs, leaving mostly the lazy, indolent, and stupid, and a handful of people truly dedicated to service to the public. Then the politicians notice, run around in a panic, give everyone raises, thus rewarding the unqualified for their inability to find a better job.