In another thread, I posted a hypothetical scenario where you could be “flagged and tagged” in a database for extra attention. I also mentioned a system whereby your car could be traced using a GPS widget in your car.

It seems that the GPS part is not necessary. Just the ability to read number plates. There is a nationwide network of cameras, and a central database. Your road journeys are being logged.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/w ... 064333.stm

Your travel is being logged.

As long as it catches those dodging road tax/insurance/driving without an MOT I dont mind too much....thought they could do it already tbh

Hopefully catching those cheats should bring insurance down a bit for honest motorists

Did read somewhere that 1 in 5 are uninsured, don't know how true seems a bit high to me but they need to be caught.

and with all the specs cameras in place they have the means, suprised actually that they dont use them for all the tax dodging and insurance dodging feckers already as fin said

i mean couldnt be that hard could it , the police are already doing it

Do you not have any appreciation for your freedom? Seriously, do you not even contemplate where HMG could go with this, or the power this sort of technology gives them?

Seriously, I'm sick to the back teeth of "I'm OK, I have nothing to hide" arguments. I have absolutely no faith for such technologies to be used against criminals only (these things also track innocent civilians, what's that, collateral damage!?), HMG govt. promised on numerous occassions that anti-terror powers and RIPA would only be used in extreme circumstances, and yet we have extremely draconian powers being used against pensioners, amateur photographers and people who might not live in the catchment area for a certain school.

I resent my freedom (which my grandfather fought so hard to retain) being given away so easily by cretins in this country who have absolutely no idea what they're doing, how hard it was to obtain such freedom in the first place or how hard it will be to get them back ("they", that is, the bad people, never actually disappear you know, and even if they did, HMG will easy find something else to scare the sheeple with).

To those who seriously think that this is going to be used against criminals only, I have only one thing to say:

"First, they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Communist..."

I'm with Linux_user all the way.

Particular example. There is a dual carriageway of sorts in the neighboring town which is notorious for boy racers and they've done stuff to discourage them like silly islands that piss everyone else off but the reality is at least fifty percent of drivers treat it as dual carriage way to drive at forty, and more despite the fact it is plainly an urban road and hence thirty limit given no signs authorizing higher (as another dual carriageway in the town is marked-and people speed on less). Despite in one direction a speed sign that flashes if you are doing more than thirty. People slow for it then speed after. Once in a while they put a speed camera van on but it is visible from far away to catch few people. An unmarked car on the road would be working flat out issuing tickets all day but no they stick on a camera van everyone slows for as they see it well in advance. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Databases are an infringement on liberty unless tightly constrained and controlled. Worse they are a sop for laziness when there are more effective alternatives. The reality is cops spend far to much time meeting targets and filling in paperwork and far to little time out on the street on foot and in cars actually enforcing the law. In the village I live in you virtually never see a cop. In the old days there would have been one around twenty four seven (The old police post is now the dentist surgery) and the officers involved knew the village, know its reprobates, knew their behavior to keep them in check and so on. Now you go to the community council to complain and all you get is excuses about resources. Sorry, I call [LIFTED] to that.

Richard.

+1



Every so often my dad tells me that when he was young (so we're talking a good 40+ yrs ago ) you could leave your house unlocked at night and there was rarely any need for police as there was hardly any trouble - how things have changed!

As for the thread title - ''It's started'', well let's be honest, it started a long time ago and is just getting bloody worse. As for it helping combat uninsured drivers/tax dodgers -it may, but it's also being used for alot more purposes, for example, the man in the article - being threatened under the Terrorism Act for attending anti-war demonstrations

I think the phrase ''Big brother is watching you'' is more and more relevant these days.

So, Cameras on roads/city centres logging travel/movement,
ID cards holding DNA/Iris data, logging travel + purchases,
Internet monitoring, logging emails/VOIP calls - communication

And all for our own protection? MY A*SE.

On a side note, empty glass bottles - tick, petrol - tick, rags -tick, lighter - tick - anyone got a map of where these cameras are placed?

It's the nature of people in power to seek more power..

This sort of thing has happened before. The Met police were established in 1829, but only after decades of argument. At the time, it was seen by some as necessary to have a police force to investigate crime etc. But others saw it as a major threat to general liberty, an opportunity for the government to spy on and control society. In the end they made it work by placing constitutional limits on the powers of the police, and by incorporating the force in such a way that it was theoretically absent of political motive. It may not have been perfect, but the fact we still get to argue about this stuff suggests they didn't [LIFTED] up too badly.

Until recently, mass civil surveillance has been a fantasy. The Gestapo and the KGB pretended they had such a capability, but it was fictional, the effort of collecting and anlysing the huge amount of data required was simply too great and expensive. Modern technology however makes it cheaper and easier, and sooner or later it will become so cheap and so easy that it is just destined to happen. What you see with this number plate stuff is just the start. As the tech improves it will offer the capability to catch all sorts of dodgy people. Today that might be hit and run, or uninsured drivers. Soon it will be mini cab rapists and serial killers. One day it will be drug trafficers and terrorists. Some of those seem like people that we kind of do want to catch.

The problem isn't so much the tech or even the data, but the implementation. Its a question of who has it, and how they are allowed to use it. The current ideal seems to be to pool a giant amount of intelligence and make it available to councils, the DSS, the police, Mi5 and god knows who else. That is clearly not acceptable. We need to return to the debate that surrounded the incorporation of the first police force, and look at the solution that worked pretty well then.

A seperate and impartial civil surveillance authority that owns all the gathered data, and does not supply it in raw format to any other agency and is unable even to search its own data without a warrant or court order. Which cannot be bullied or bribed into monitoring the activities of those who are not suspected of a genuine criminal offence. One which is answerable to a cross party parliamentary committee rather than a govt minister, and is granted no exemptions from FOI (freedom of information requests), other than the right to remove personally identifying data. Something like that could probably be made to work tollerably well as a balance between crime detection and civil liberties.

I have appreciation for my freedom, although if you actually understand how very little you actually have then you kindof don't care anymore.

Currently I work 10-7/8 so don't really have any freedom in that time apart from what to have for lunch or what to drink
I own a car so I dont have a freedom of choice to insure it or not or to tax/MOT it or not, same for keeping it roadworthy
I don't have much freedom of choice about the services I receive from the payment of my taxes or my National Insurance contributions.
I don't have much freedom of choice in being filmed on CCTV at work or in town with all the security cameras which are there for the safety of the public and help in prevention/conviction of crime/criminals
I don't have much freedom of choice in who represents myself in the government, either a conservative, or a conservative with a red tie on...

This taking record of my plates won't bother me too much, given the amount of speed cameras/average speed cameras/traffic management cameras I go past on a 700 mile round trip I do once a month a few extra cameras won't bother me.


Point being? Times have changed, if it wasn't for September 11th, July 7th etc these things laws probably wouldn't have come into place.

If Baby P's family hadnt abused and ultimately killed the small child the new law would not have been brought in.

You never had freedom to start with.
We have moved to becoming a more liberal society but still as few freedoms as we used to have


I don't think they are going to be used against criminals only, that would be one of the most asanine things I would have seen on here. The cameras will more than likely scan every car and check road tax/insurance/MOT/outstanding issues with the driver etc.

I have done nothing wrong and on the proviso it does catch those 20% driving without insurance (which is one of the reasons insurance is high because of risk from uninsured drivers), catch those driving unsafe vehicles on the road, then I have no qualms about it

It's not just crime catching, it's crime prevention, you discourage people from performing criminal acts you have done one better than allowing them to perform the act.

And as I said in the ID thread: It's here already, without the ID cards they are already tracking us.

Do I agree with it? No, I think it's here because things have gotten too big to manage. People travel too much and small village police officers can't do a lot in the big picture.
The way we lived our lives 100 years ago meant we didn't do a lot of travel, management was easier because few people left/entered the town and so the local authorities could keep tabs on them.
Today we travel a lot, Finley alone does more than 700 miles a month. More people are going abroad and coming through the borders. Local authorities can't cope with that.

I don't care what challenges they face. They need to work harder and smarter, not just point a camera at absolutely everything. Fin poses an interesting point about never having had freedom in the first place. I think it's entirely possible that freedom was achieved shortly after WWII, then destroyed by the Cold War and the rise of "terrorism".

The mistake here is believing we have a choice. But that doesn't mean I'm not angry about it. I just haven't yet figured out what to do with that anger.

That's because it's public policy, and can easily be changed. Look at New Zealand, no mandatory car insurance over there.



Sure you do, that's what elections are for. You can even opt out of NHS treatment and go private if you so desire. Of course, that doesn't relieve you of your tax burden, but there is the argument out there that is should.



You have every choice whether to be filmed or not. By definition if you accepted the job you accepted the CCTV. If you don't like it, don't work for a company that employs such methods. As for being filmed in public, there's no longer evidence to show CCTV even reduces the crime rate. It's just rolled out everywhere without any consideration as to the impact it will have on both crime rates and the privacy of the innocent people it's watching.



Vote for someone else then, and/or campaign for electoral reform.



The amount of cameras bothers me. I don't really want Jacqui Smith to be able to tell everywhere I went once I left my front door. Something tells me she wouldn't appreciate it if I followed her around all day.



We had threats against this country long before September 11th. Anyone remember the IRA? I don't remember John Major or Margaret Thatcher telling the English people to surrender their freedom. In fact, John Major wrote an article in The Times against ID cards et al.



That's knee jerk, public opinion-led politics for you. Politicians must be seen to be doing something.



How's a camera going to tell if a vehicle is unsafe? Also a camera isn't going to tell you if a vehicle has been taken without the owner's consent, a policeman out on the motorway however, just might be able to tell.



At what cost? If we could help prevent crime by micro-chipping everyone and installing cameras in your house, would you be up for that? Funnily enough the crime rate wasn't very low in the Soviet Union or Eastern Germany, why? It's much easier for the police to target ordinary civilians for no particular reason than go after the real criminals.

The best deterrent has always been to have more Policemen down on the ground.

And what is your point? Car insurance is better than hitting someone and having to pay to replace their vehicle out of your own pocket. I would rather pay insurance than have to pay out of my own pocket for someones BMW should I be involved in an accident and deemed at fault. Same goes for injury claims. Your point is invalid as the guilty party still pays, although not by a 3rd party.

I don't. I voted lib dem.

I can choose to go private, that is another expense. And going private doesnt stop me paying contributions, not paying defeats the point of a national health service.


I don't have every choice in public. It is perfectly legal to take a camera into a city centre and photograph/film people. There might not be the evidence that it does prevent crime but CCTV DOES help convict people.

Been there, done that, nothing happened as a result.

Stalking is a crime, over exaggeration is not a valid rebuttal to an arguement.

Do you actually drive long distances? If you have seen the amount of cameras ALREADY on the motorway then you would be quite surprised they don't already do this.

Yeah IRA had military aid to stop it. SAS and army troops to help stop the violence.

Changing the subject to ID cards is pointless. I already carry 3 forms of ID with me, some of which I legally have to own such as a driving licence to drive. One more card won't make a difference although I object to paying for it as an additional cost.


A camera can tell on a database if the car has a valid MOT, road tax, insurance.

I struggle to believe a policeman can scan hundreds of car and look them up to see if a car has valid tax or insurance on vehicles going past at 70mph.

Which means yet more tax money going on that, I like things the way they are, and resent the piglets on the street when there should be police on the streets I agree, but it won't happen.

And what is your point? Car insurance is better than hitting someone and having to pay to replace their vehicle out of your own pocket. I would rather pay insurance than have to pay out of my own pocket for someones BMW should I be involved in an accident and deemed at fault. Same goes for injury claims. Your point is invalid as the guilty party still pays, although not by a 3rd party.[/quote]

Yes, I never denied car insurance is an advantage. I was merely replying to your point about car insurance being mandatory, and stating that it doesn't have to be.



Depends what they're wearing. You can have all the pictures you want if you don't know who someone is, or worse, the camera can't identify them because they're wearing a hoody etc.



I try not to leave the county if I can avoid it. But sure, I've seen the cameras on the M5, M4 etc. I don't like them. I would much rather we had more traffic police enforcing good driving standards than cameras telling me if I've averaged 72mph instead of 70mph. Speed in itself is not dangerous, it's how and when you use it. I have no problem with people exceeding 100mph on an empty motorway at 2am, clearly at 5pm on a Friday it's an entirely different matter.


Yeah IRA had military aid to stop it. SAS and army troops to help stop the violence.[/quote]

Sure, over in NI where the trouble actually was, ie. actual quantifiable trouble. Over on the mainland in 2009 we're being stuffed for "potential" problems that may or may not occur. An ID card is not going to stop a suicide bomber, so what's the point?



A driving licence is optional, a passport is optional. An ID card is not. The argument is also redundant because no matter how many forms of ID you may hold, none of them contain personal information such as your fingerprints, DNA and/or Iris scan. I wouldn't put it past them to include your religion, sexuality and your favourite football team on them either.



Sure, but it can't check the driver of that vehicle. You're [LIFTED] if a scrote steals someone's Mercedes which has valid credentials. However, a Policeman can spot a 16 year old driving said Mercedes and think "Hm, something not quite right here".



Give the Police car the ANPR, instead of rolling it out everywhere.