I don't really object to some of my information being held in some Government information store, somewhere. What bothers me is whether it is secure or not (probably not), is it being sold to raise money for the Government (DVLA sell it) and to what alternative use might it be put. I can't really see the need to record everyone's car, ferry and aircraft flights and store the info for any length of time. If you've nothing to hide you've nothing to fear - maybe. If the Governemnt loses or sells your data, and it falls into the wrong hands, you've got plenty to worry about and probably no legal comeback!
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In my local area the council have recently installed an ANPR system, supposedly for traffic management. This was done without fanfare or consultation - mysterious cameras suddenly appeared at key locations around the area.
Local drivers contacted the council to check how the data was being handled, and what their procedures are to conform to the data protection act and it turns out the council has not decided how long they're keeping the data for, and didn't even consider any privacy or data protection issues when they implemented the system. The council also confirmed that the data would be available to the police.
However due to the representations of the drivers, local councillors managed to get a motion passed to consider the privacy aspects of the system, so it pays to make a fuss!
It seems there's no law or even guidelines regarding ANPR systems, and organisations such as the police and local government are introducing these systems just because they can, which is contributing to our sleepwalking into a police state.
I'm in favour of targeted ANPR, where the police can stop drivers there and then for specific offences (providing that if they get it wrong then the wrongfully accused gets compensation), but I'm totally against use of ANPR to generate a database of car movements which has civil liberty and privacy issues.
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I had wondered about peoples car insurance running out at say 10am and the owner renews their insurance that day, does the ANPR know this update or is the driver pulled over and checked ?
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I think it's important to know fully what the technology is doing with the info from the nationwide cameras.
If anyone in any kind of minor officialdom could tap in to ANPR type information at will, with no checks or safeguards... and check to see where a specific person had been, in their car, for say the last 12 months, then that would indeed be concerning
if however, information via ANPR on a car that otherwise had no 'markers' on it, was not available until a certain amount of authority and 'hoops' were gone through, so that in reality it was only ever used for noticeable crime reasons etc....then i wouldn't have a problem with it.
There's a difference between a fairly passive 'note' of a vehicle on an ANPR as it passes..and nothing further is done with that info because there's no need to and it drops off a file eventually (although could be looked at later if the reason was deemed important enough)*...and cars that set off ANPR for a specific reason via a 'marker' system and are then checked in to further.
e.g. the difference between Joe Average pootling off on his holidays and driving past an ANPR camera that merely notes his registration number, no one ever bothers looking at it and eventually it drops off the system...and Joe Thief driving a stolen car, who 'pings' an ANPR camera i.e. sets off an alarm, because the car is shown as stolen and it is then actively investigated/pursued or whatever
* in reality it could only be used for 'important' reasons, because there simply isn't enough staff available to monitor it all.
the answer is in decent safeguards, so that you don't get the same 'slippage' as there has been with RIPA (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act), so that local councils use suerveillance on people for things like school catchment areas or not filling their bin properly...whereas the legislation was designed for police surveillance etc.
Another example of 'slippage'...and back to motoring... is that of the DVLA letting all and sundry have our registration details for a small fee...
our Govt should have a tight handle on this sort of thing..for some reason they couldn't care less
Edited by Westpig on 29/06/2009 at 14:15
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As long as procedures/safeguards are in place and followed accordingly then ANPR is a useful tool for catching insurance, VED & MOT cheats, stolen vehicles etc.
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Road A is not covered by ANPR so everybody uses it without a record. Nastyman kills someone, puts the body in the rear of his ca,r takes it to Road A and disposes of it in a ditch and covers over. Three months later the body is discovered.
A very uphill task for Plod to discover the culprit.
Now had there been ANPR, Post mortem and Forensic would have come up with a time of death and disposal to within 48 hours or thereabouts. Tap into the ANPR record as to what passed the device and strong line of enquiry established - not available without device.
Nastman's days numbered.
As I understand particularly in the drugs field they are swapping cars, number plates etc but they cannot escape that record when passing APNR thereby setting up a trail.
Remember the fuss when CCTV came to the High Street. Does anybody feel their awareness nowadays?
It's twee I know but if you have nothing to hide and behave yourself it won't affect you.
As long as thses records are not made public to everybody willy nilly then it is Ok with me.
dvd
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As long as these records are not made public to everybody willy nilly then it is Ok with me.
Totally agree dvd
Question is how much do we trust government or pseudo government organisations to use it only in specific circumstances
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Missed another chance to go in daughter's fiance's tweaked, very pretty pearlescent white Skyline GTR yesterday in the country. He took its cover off and washed it, then realised the road fund licence was out of date. He was going to take it for a pootle round the local roads anyway, but I reminded him that all police cars have ANPR now and they would certainly point the camera at the Skyline if they saw it. So I will have to wait until he comes back from the Nurburgring next week.
The car is very pretty indeed although not concours. It's had a couple of big bangs, one caused by a single-seater at Castle Combe, so the paint doesn't match exactly, concours-style. It's a real car that gets used. Synchro going on third and fourth, he says, but he means to get a new gear set with lower ratios on 1, 2 and 3, probably straight cut. Going to be noisy but who cares?
It's got a huge six-inch exhaust that goes all the way forward to the downpipe too, not just from the back box to look barry and make a booming noise. Less back pressure keeps the turbos spinning nicely, he says.
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Has he got it SORNed Lud? Just as likely to get a letter from the nice man at DVLA for that.
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Just a thought - if they have enough of them "they" won't need satellites to track your movements.
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It's got a huge six-inch exhaust that goes all the way forward to the downpipe too ...........
Without hearing it, I imagine it's just the sort of antisocial car (and owner) I hate to see and hear on the road. In the interests of the general population, road-going cars should be well silenced.
Edited by L'escargot on 29/06/2009 at 16:17
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'Remember the fuss when CCTV came to the High Street. Does anybody feel their awareness nowadays?.. and are our High Streets any safer. Answer NO.
As for the system of ' markers " You often give the bloke down the road a lift to work and he reciprocates. What you don't know is that he is a kiddie fiddler, drug dealer, prolific burglar.
He is seen in your car by plod. A marker goes on your reg pointing out that the owner of your vehicle, i.e YOU, are associating with such type and might be worth a check yourself. Penny doesn't drop till you realise that you have been stopped 3 or 4 times over the last couple of months.
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Well Mr X, that is how intelligence works to a certain extent. However, that sort of initial information would be subject to further analysis and cross checking using other intelligence sources (i.e. PNC, local intelligence records etc) If you had any form of intelligence against you in respect of kiddie fiddling (as you quaintly put it) you would find your car on PNC (probably) and thereby discoverable via ANPR.
Intelligence records are expunged; depending on the 5x5x5 matrix, on a regular basis. In the bad old days of card indexes, that sort of info' would stay with you for ever. Now, intelligence databases are set to delete records meeting certain criteria; which is comforting.
I know this because it was my business to know and to do. I administered such a system and set the parameters according to guidelines laid down. (but I am probably a part of the conspiracy, I expect)
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So DNA taken off people who are innocent ( either proven in courts or not charged ) and kept but the sort of information markers put on the ANPR system are checked, revised and removed ? Seems a bit odd that.
Some one did once post on here how long the plate reading remained on the ANPR system but I can't remember how long that was if any one would care to refresh that bit of info.
I must admit, I do see the whole ANPR system in this country as being very like the room full of files and index cards the Stasi used to operate until 1989.
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ANPR relies on:
Lost/Stolen, no insurance/RFL or other actionable marker on PNC to trigger the ding ding ding noise the operator needs to have his/her attention drawn to it. In addition, there is another marker system which is "off PNC" called "hot list" which might be a local initiative, i.e. known taxi tout VRM's.
These PNC/Hot Lists naturally rely on timely, accurate and relevant intelligence. Obviously, just like your life at home, things do get forgotten and items may not be removed as quickly as they should. This happens on a minority of occasions and is due to poor processes.
If you are a taxi tout, I would want to conduct "back office" searches of the historical data to see when you came into town, where you came into town, where you drove in town and when/where you left. This would enable me to more effectively resource an operation to target these people who are often rapists and violent criminals.
If you were a paedo'' and you were seen as a passenger in a car, or driving one, I would conduct a search to see if you were out and about in the car at school start/finish times, in the locality of a school or whatever. It is a useful investigative tool. If a local bobby saw a paedo in someones car as a passenger, I would hope he would submit an intelligence report. That is what he is paid to do. That is what we would want him to do. However, I would also expect that initial intelligence to be further reviewed by trained and skilled intelligence officers, who would conduct necessary enquiries to establish the relevance and/or importance of the information.
Kipling (Rudyard, not the bloke who made exceedingly good cakes) penned the following "I keep six honest serving men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When, And How and Where and Who" The poem should be etched on the brain of every intelligence officer.
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Mr X - 'Remember the fuss when CCTV came to the High Street. Does anybody feel their awareness nowadays?.. and are our High Streets any safer. Answer NO
Very cutely worded, to generate the answer you want. The question should be - Are our High Streets any safer with CCTV than they would be without CCTV? - I would suggest YES
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Having seen the pathetic, un recognisable feature less images shown to us on Crime Watch every month along with the plea ' do you know who this is ", we clearly shouldn't worry about being watched 24/7. What evidence to you bring to the table to support these cameras making us safer ?
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What evidence to you bring to the table to support these cameras making us safer ?
I'm willing to bring some.
Local councils administer the CCTV cameras... and with a 'partnership' approach share working practices with the police, so they'll often have a police radio in their control room and access to direct dial emergency phone lines etc. They are an invaluable crime fighting and prevention tool. Over the years, as the operators have got better, they have become exceptionally professional.
i'm not always a fan of the local council(s) as they can be bureacratic and slow to react. This is not true of the CCTV control rooms.
-They can follow cars, continually from camera to camera, when a crime has been committed, so the police control room can direct cars to it (and that evidence will be recorded), they rarely have to be asked to do so, they monitor the radio and react accordingly...and believe me, following a car via cameras is not that easy.
-They now notice 'oiks', through experience, as a police officer would and will concentrate on them, as violence or similar builds up;
-they can notice such crimes as ATM fraud and alert police before anyone has even been scammed.
-pub fights and evidence for serious assaults
-how serious is the car accident call that's come through
-how bad is the fire
-let's leave a camera covering a vulnerable victim's address (rather than let it sporadically move about)
how valuable do you think it is to police (and therefore the public) when the camera in the police control room, keeps flicking from side to side..so your eye catches it and you look at it...and you notice a big brawl outside a problem pub...and the council cctv operator wanted the police to notice it, but couldn't get in on the radio due to an urgent incident happening elsewhere
there's a whole host of uses...how about speaking from knowledge Mr X, before you post
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Crime Watch starts in a minute. Look at the grainy, out of focus , un recognisable images they will bring to the table, asking ' do you know this man '. Their own mothers wouldn't know them.
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Crime Watch starts in a minute. Look at the grainy out of focus un recognisable images they will bring to the table asking ' do you know this man '. Their own mothers wouldn't know them.
usually from private businesses who don't wish to pay for quality
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usually from private businesses who don't wish to pay for quality
I used to visit the cctv control rooms of a major supermarket chain. Their system could read the labels on the shelves, (to small print level), and follow people continiously throughout the store. All digitally recorded. They also had very good inteligence and mug shots of people to keep an eye on. If the "partnership" systems are anything like that standard, the shots used on TV must be degraded.
Edited by Old Navy on 29/06/2009 at 22:47
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sorry ON, I was thinking more the small newsagent, corner shop type outfit, perhaps I could have clarified it better
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No problem Westpig, I was responding to Mr Xs "their own mothers.....".
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Random, "symbolic" scattering of ANPR (ditto Gatsos, etc.) = random reduction of crime, displacement to other areas; result = back to square one. Put the bell on the cat's neck = cat learns to tiptoe and still catches mice.
Methodical spread of ANPR etc. (i.e. no street free from its clutches) = perception of security; in practice not enough staff to scan images properly. Widespread cloning of car registrations; car theft now more likely to include kidnapping of owner to prevent alarm being raised. I know this from living in the Basque Country where terrorism-linked kidnappings and car thefts are unfortunately still known to occur.
We may *feel* safer with CCTV and ANPR and the like but in reality we aren't. A dark alley is still a dark alley and a spaced-out joyrider is still a spaced-out joyrider.
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We may *feel* safer with CCTV and ANPR and the like but in reality we aren't. A dark alley is still a dark alley and a spaced-out joyrider is still a spaced-out joyrider.
In fact we can be in more danger, due to 'feeling' safer... our natural senses dull over time, if they are not used.
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Fundamentally, even without argueing about the pros/cons/effectiveness of the system etc(although I have strong views about those), there is no way that taxpayers money should be able to be used on a system without us knowing everything about it. Simple as that. The police got a very generous increase in funds from my council tax this year (5.7%), and I would be pretty annoyed to read that it is going to be spent on something I have little means of objectively criticising. If it works so well, where is the harm in the 'deterent effect' of letting people know all about it?
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I don't like it, due to the cross-pollination which is planned for all of these systems.
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I don't like it either.
ANPR for a specific, realtime purpose like grabbing untaxed/insured/mot vehicles - yes.
Logging every journey of every car for infinity is far to close to what we used to laugh at in the cold war days, East of the Iron Curtain.
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all police cars have ANPR now
is that correct, DVD?
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 30/06/2009 at 11:33
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>> all police cars have ANPR now is that correct DVD?
>>
i'm not DVD, but i'm sure he won't mind....the answer is 'no', however they are becoming more and more the norm. I have no knowledge of what is around the corner, but it would not surprise me at all if that were to be the case eventually
Edited by Westpig on 30/06/2009 at 12:29
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however they are becoming more and more the norm.
I stand corrected, not for the first time... should have said perhaps that you can't rely on any police car not having ANPR these days. I was pulled by an ordinary marked Surrey patrol Eurobox 18 months ago, ANPR said MoT expired... or might they have typed my number into their computer terminal?
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Remember the fuss when CCTV came to the High Street.
This has nothing to do with one's movements being recorded by systems such as those in the OP. It would, of course, be a concern should these CCTV images record a "subject number" (tattoed on the subject's forehead, perhaps?) and should the images be stored in a database containing location, time, and subject number.
It's twee I know but if you have nothing to hide and behave yourself it won't affect you.
Yes, it is twee. It's also a word I'm not allowed to say here, so I shall just say that it's utter pink fluffy dice.
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 30/06/2009 at 14:44
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