Privacy and the State

[ahinton]

As further evidence (as if any were needed) that we should be concerned not only about what GCHQ might collect and what it might do with it, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22853432 gives a number of examples of who else can collect and use data.

I've you've done nothing "wrong" but you've still done "something", you are presumably deemed to deserve to have something to fear; why is it, for example, that UK has more working (well, one assumed that most of them are working) CCTV cameras per capita than any other country in the world? - it's enough to put US paranoia in the shade, n'est-ce pas?

[LeMartinPecheur]

As further evidence (as if any were needed) that we should be concerned not only about what GCHQ might collect and what it might do with it, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22853432 gives a number of examples of who else can collect and use data.

I've you've done nothing "wrong" but you've still done "something", you are presumably deemed to deserve to have something to fear; why is it, for example, that UK has more working (well, one assumed that most of them are working) CCTV cameras per capita than any other country in the world? - it's enough to put US paranoia in the shade, n'est-ce pas?

Using the verb "watch" as in "they're watching all of us via the CCTV cameras" - the verb is unthinkingly thus used in the link - needs a bit of analysis. Get real guys! How many people do you reckon it takes to properly watch all the outputs of say 2m cameras? Let's make it an 8-hour day, 7 days a week: that's only about 6m people! And that's before we get to all those monitoring all our phone-calls and emails!

To state the obvious, very few street camera outputs are actually watched. But their outputs commonly go hard-disc where they can be recovered if there's any need. Typically their memory gets overwritten after 7 or 14 days. Only if there is a reported crime in the area does the recording get saved and closely watched. Apart from obvious on-street crime they can be used to show, eg, doorstep criminals who rip off pensioners for grossly overpriced, even unnecessary or non-existent home repairs 'helping' (frog-marching) their victims to the bank to make large cash withdrawals. Such evidence can be absolutely critical in identifying villains and securing convictions.

Such cameras do also deter muggings, assaults, indecent assaults etc. They keep crime figures down and increase our own sense of security in our streets. Are you happy to risk the rise in street-crime that would inevitably follow any large reduction in CCTV surveillance? Seems to me a pretty fair exchange. Better a wee bit of 'paranoia' than US levels of street-crime surely?

The total number of CCTV cameras probably also includes privately-owned ones in shops, where again the primary point is deterrence through vastly increased risk of detection. This can be major crime like armed robbery for till-takings, but also serves to catch - or deter - shoplifters. Remember, we all pay the losses from this crime: it's a business overhead that has to be passed on. Better it doesn't happen then, hein?

[Flosshilde]

Using the unthinking verbs "watch" as in "they're watching all of us via the CCTV cameras" - the verb is unthinkingly thus in the link - needs a bit of analysis. Get real guys! How many people do you reckon it takes to properly watch all the outputs of say 2m cameras? Let's make it an 8-hour day, 7 days a week: that's only about 6m people! And that's before we get to all those monitoring all our phone-lines and emails!

Of course 'they' are watching us - why have the cameras if they aren't? There might not be someone watching each screen from each camera all the time, but they are watched.

Such cameras do also deter muggings, assaults, indecent assaults etc. They keep crime figures down and increase our own sense of security in our streets. Are you happy to risk the rise in street-crime that would inevitably follow any large reduction in CCTV surveillance? Seems to me a pretty fair exchange. Better a wee bit of 'paranoia' than US levels of street-crime surely?

Where's the evidence for this? There is a strong possibility (probability, really) that such crime is simply shifted to other areas. CCTV cameras are used to harass people who are not doing anything illegal, but who's activities are not thought desirable in a well-regulated society - eg teenagers socialising in the street, or gay men hugging (it happened to me)

increase our own sense of security in our streets.

Not mine.

[Richard Barrett]

Of course 'they' are watching us - why have the cameras if they aren't? There might not be someone watching each screen from each camera all the time, but they are watched.

Also we aren't in the twentieth century any more - it isn't necessary for someone to watch each screen because face-recognition programs can sift through massive amounts of footage in almost no time, just as it isn't necessary for someone to read all those millions of emails or listen to all those millions of phone calls.

Is there any evidence that CCTV use in the UK has reduced crime relative to other European countries without such blanket surveillance? If there is I haven't come across it.

[Frances_iom]

... Are you happy to risk the rise in street-crime that would inevitably follow any large reduction in CCTV surveillance? Seems to me a pretty fair exchange. Better a wee bit of 'paranoia' than US levels of street-crime surely?
...

It has been estimated (based on actual statistics) that if stolen phones could be de-activated by the network (fairly easy tho all such counter measures could be probably undone by sophisticated thieves) then the target of most UC city street crime could be made worthless for most petty criminals - however US networks are not willing to do so.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Of course 'they' are watching us - why have the cameras if they aren't?

I thought I'd explained this adequately. Suggest you reread #452, second para.

[Flosshilde]

I have. And?

Is there any evidence that CCTV has had any effect in reducing crime (especially doorstep criminals who rip off pensioners for grossly overpriced, even unnecessary or non-existent home repairs 'helping' (frog-marching) their victims to the bank to make large cash withdrawals. which would suggest CCTV cameras aimed at people's houses)? The net effect is to create an environment of fear of crime ('why would they have all these cameras if there wasn't any crime?') and to harass people who are going about their lawful business.

[Ahollingsworth1961]

I have. And?

Is there any evidence that CCTV has had any effect in reducing crime (especially doorstep criminals who rip off pensioners for grossly overpriced, even unnecessary or non-existent home repairs 'helping' (frog-marching) their victims to the bank to make large cash withdrawals. which would suggest CCTV cameras aimed at people's houses)? The net effect is to create an environment of fear of crime ('why would they have all these cameras if there wasn't any crime?') and to harass people who are going about their lawful business.

I watched a tv programme a few weeks ago about these sort of scams, and the criminals were caught by the police because there was CCTV at the bottom of the elderly person's road and at the high street where the cashpoint was. Maybe CCTV does help?

[Mr Pee]

I have. And?

Well, you say you have re-read the post, but either you haven't, or you're being wilfully dim.

I would love to know in what way such cameras

harass people who are going about their lawful business

I pass many such cameras every day whilst going about my lawful business, and not one of them has harrassed me. However, it has been widely reported in the local press down here that the perpetrators of an unprovoked assault on a homeless man sleeping in a bus shelter not three miles from my home were arrested, tried and found guilty due in no small part to evidence gathered from CCTV footage.

We all know crime exists; if you need CCTV cameras to remind you of the fact then you are clearly living in some sort of parallel universe. The cameras help to deter criminals;where they do not, then they can help to bring them to justice,as above.

What on earth is the problem with that?

[ahinton]

Well, you say you have re-read the post, but either you haven't, or you're being wilfully dim.

I would love to know in what way such cameras

I pass many such cameras every day whilst going about my lawful business, and not one of them has harrassed me. However, it has been widely reported in the local press down here that the perpetrators of an unprovoked assault on a homeless man sleeping in a bus shelter not three miles from my home were arrested, tried and found guilty due in no small part to evidence gathered from CCTV footage.

We all know crime exists; if you need CCTV cameras to remind you of the fact then you are clearly living in some sort of parallel universe. The cameras help to deter criminals;where they do not, then they can help to bring them to justice,as above.

What on earth is the problem with that?

Just ask yourself why - as I have questioned already - UK has a far larger proportion of CCTV cameras per capita than has any other "civilised" country and then tell us why, in your view, this is the case; is Britain so vastly more criminally motivated than any other nation?

Anyway, in the meantime, from the comment by BBC's diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23045790, we read that Snowden is apparently
at the very least a potential intelligence gift horse that has almost literally dropped into their laps. I had thought that gift horses were things not to be looked at in the mouth rather than ones that drop into the recipient's lap (which could be quite painful), but I daresay that Mr Marcus is nevertheless correct at least to the extent that the Russians will be keen in any case to look this one in the mouth provided that said mouth tells them all that they'd like to know before he mysteriously disappears elsewhere, unfettered by the revocation of his passport which is also mentioned in this article).

[Mr Pee]

Just ask yourself why - as I have questioned already - UK has a far larger proportion of CCTV cameras per capita than has any other "civilised" country and then tell us why, in our view, this is the case; is Britain so vastly more criminally motivated than any other EU nation?

Firstly, I don't know whether that is the case, but if it is then I really couldn't care less. The presence of CCTV cameras does not bother me in the slightest. On the contrary, it reassures me.

[ahinton]

Firstly, I don't know whether that is the case, but if it is then I really couldn't care less. The presence of CCTV cameras does not bother me in the slightest. On the contrary, it reassures me.

Well, I suppose that it's a good thing that it reassures someone; it certainly doesn't do that for me. That said, do you not care whether or not they work? or whether they're being interfered with either by physical damage or electronic corruption, wilful or accidental - or even by theft? And do you have total trust at all times in the legality, morality and efficiency of those who manage the information collected by these devices? Do you have an opinion on when - if ever - enough such devices is enough in any particular location and environment? My concerns about all these things are just a handful of the reasons why I do not and indeed cannot share your arguably complacent reassurance.

The fact that there are now moves (which I trust will turn out to be unsuccessful) to limit the scope of the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) and that, in the lead up to the last General Election, the Prime Minister was allegedly keen to explore the possible abolition of the Human Rights Act (until advised - not least by my own MP - that this would hardly be a vote-catcher) are all of a piece with the situation in which the state wishes to increase its powers to interfere with and record as much as it can of its citizens' lives while at the same time restricting their access and rights to the kind of justice for which Britain has long enjoyed and deserved international renown; if that kind of thing becomes increasingly endemic in Britain, not only life will there eventually risk becoming intolerable but the general reputation of the country will begin to disintegrate. If you'd nevertheless be content with all of that because you somehow contrive to continue to feel "reassured" by it, then so be it, I guess.

[Frances_iom]

seems as tho the Met is currently running what has been dubbed a mini-PRISM - http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/ju...extremism-unit
and

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/meet-prisms-little-brother-socmint/

[Flosshilde]

Isn't it time that it was recognised that the problem with the Met (the police, not the opera company) is not that there are 'a few rotten apples' that can be dealt with by inquiries run by other police forces, but that the whole thing is a mess of putrefaction which can only be dealt with by disbanding it & setting up a new force, with a new management team, as happened in Northern Ireland?

[amateur51]

Isn't it time that it was recognised that the problem with the Met (the police, not the opera company) is not that there are 'a few rotten apples' that can be dealt with by inquiries run by other police forces, but that the whole thing is a mess of putrefaction which can only be dealt with by disbanding it & setting up a new force, with a new management team, as happened in Northern Ireland?

A sound idea in principle Flossie, but there are several by now quite elderly gents who are former Met Chief Commissioners who might not take it too kindly if the origins of the putrefaction was identified as having come under their watch. I may be being unnecessarily wary, but I just have a feeling ... :erm:

There again, the same could be said of the RUC and Chris Patten just got on with it (tho some people were most definitely not happy bunnies :yikes:)