British the most spied-on people in western world

Politics International Politics
1

In the face of the ceaseless jabbering about the imagined “loss of personal liberties,” this comes about. Always good to see Ol’ Blighty leading in something.

[quote]British the most spied-on people in western world
Lois Rogers, The Sunday Times, October 29, 2006

BRITISH people are now more spied upon by their political leaders than any other population in the free world, according to an official report.

The linkage of databases and surveillance systems mean people are now having their movements tracked, habits profiled and photograph taken hundreds of times a day. The findings, in a report compiled on behalf of Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, raised concerns that Britain is “waking up in a surveillance society”.

Thomas said: “Many of these schemes are public sector driven, and the individual has no choice over whether or not to take part. People are being scrutinised and having their lives tracked, and are not even aware of it.

“They don’t know, for instance, that a record is kept of every internet site they visit. They don’t realise that when identity cards come in, there will be a record of their movements and every time they have engaged with any public service.”

He also revealed that his office is investigating allegations of lax security at the Post Office, HSBC, NatWest and the Royal Bank of Scotland. The banks may face unlimited fines over claims that they dumped sensitive details of customers’ accounts on the streets.

The report, compiled by surveillance experts and academics, points out that a typical Briton will be caught on camera up to 300 times a day. Britain now has 4.2m public CCTV cameras, or one for every 14 people, more than any other country.

Other examples of surveillance highlighted by the report include the growing use of automatic number plate recognition to track people’s journeys and the long-term retention of logs detailing the websites people visit at home.

“It’s not just unwarranted intrusions into privacy, it’s also the dangers of inaccurate information, of mistakes being made, of information being held for too long,” Thomas said. He cited an example of a schoolgirl whose playground banter resulted in her father being refused work because he had been classed as a suspected paedophile. “The little girl was overheard saying, ‘My dad bonked me last night’. A dinner lady heard this and reported it to the school authorities,” Thomas said. Social services discovered that the girl was referring to her father tapping her playfully on the head with an inflatable hammer. The file was closed, but five years later the father discovered he was still a suspected sex offender.
timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/ … 74,00.html[/quote]

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We’re funny to watch.

And we like being watched :howyoudoin:

3

Funnier to listen to. You guys talk real funny, eh?

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Old news, TC. Very, very old news.

And who was jabbering about what?

But, yes, the UK is incredibly monitored and this is definately a bad thing. If it meant the streets would be safer then I could possibly accept some loss of “liberty” but seeing as nothing is getting better, the politicians can go and screw themselves.

As an aside, I read a surprising story last week that GCHQ had to re-develop its computer system and design completely new computers and software pretty recently to stop the CIA or whoever from trying to hack their computers.

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After all, 1984 was written in Britain.

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[quote=“Dangermouse”]Old news, TC. Very, very old news.[/quote]Oh…really?[quote]The Sunday Times, October 29, 2006 [/quote]Any fresher and it would still be wiggling!

And who was jabbering about what?

But, yes, the UK is incredibly monitored and this is definately a bad thing. If it meant the streets would be safer then I could possibly accept some loss of “liberty” but seeing as nothing is getting better, the politicians can go and screw themselves.

As an aside, I read a surprising story last week that GCHQ had to re-develop its computer system and design completely new computers and software pretty recently to stop the CIA or whoever from trying to hack their computers.[/quote]DM -
You hack us…we hack you…just a loop.

I think this UK “spying” thing is also making the news due to the increased use of traffic cams. Not to mention the car-park cams and the street cams outside pubs. And then there are the crossing cams and the “traffic-flow” cams. And the pigeon feeder cams.
Coupled with the advent of facial recognition software its a ‘fun new tool’ that everybody wants and works like the dickens to justify adding it to the budget.
Somewhere I have an email notice of an article about the increasing ability of the jihadiis in their use of the internet. More hacking I suppose from that quarter.
And then there is the devoted PLA group…mores the fun, eh?

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Where’s the loss of liberty if no one is watching these videos? Do we really have people watching all the videos, 24 hours each day, for each of the 4 million cameras in the UK?

They are only watched when something bad happens, no?

I’m all for it. I come from a rough town, and walking home at night is a lot less scary when you stick to the monitored areas.

Trouble is, though, all the burglars do their business in the country now, where there aren’t so many cameras.

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I bet there are some great best of CCTV tapes doing the rounds among the watchers.

HG

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It is old news. I remember reading this good NYT article on the subject 5 years ago, written by lawyer and privacy expert Jeffrey Rosen, but unfortunately it’s now “Times Select,” meaning one now needs to pay to read the article.

[quote]A Watchful State
October 7, 2001, Sunday
By JEFFREY ROSEN (NYT); Magazine Desk

DISPLAYING ABSTRACT - Jeffrey Rosen article says biometric cameras installed in Great Britain after terrorist attacks by Irish Republican Army in 1993 and 1994 are not perceived as Big Brother intrusion but rather as friendly eyes in the sky; there are estimated 2.5 million surveillance cameras in country; Britain’s experience with them is what Americans can expect if we choose to go down same road in our efforts to achieve ‘homeland security’; cameras are designed not to produce arrests but to make people feel that they are being watched at all times; rather than thwarting serious crime, cameras are used to enforce social conformity in ways that Americans may prefer to avoid . . .[/quote]

Here’s an interview with Rosen from October 2001:

[quote]Since the terrorist attacks, some have suggested installing surveillance cameras in public places to increase security. Great Britain did that after IRA bombings in 1993 and 1994, and as a result of the average Briton is photographed, according to one estimate, hundreds of time a day.

In 1994, British cameras captured the abduction of a 2-year-old boy by two older children from the shopping center. And they recorded traffic incidents like this and so-called parking garage incident where one car is seeing trying to push another out of a parking space. The women caught on camera lost her life since for a year.

The issue of public surveillance is the subject of the cover story, and today’s New York Times magazine, the author of that article called A Watchful State joins us now here is Jeffrey Rosen. Thanks a lot for coming in today. . .[/quote]
transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/ … sm.12.html

So, I agree it’s old news. But it’s still very interesting and controversial. I’m sure many are grateful for all the cameras – and, as a law and order type guy, TC, I would think you would be one of them – but others find it a huge and terrifying invasion of privacy.

Incidentally, Taiwan seems to have an abundance of security cameras too (and no concept of individual rights and invasion of privacy), and I’m sure the US has been catching up fast in the past 5 years.

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Most of the cameras in the UK are actually traffic cams and they do help very much with helping traffic flow. Then, of course, you have the congestion charge cameras in London which read your number plate and then send you a bill for a fiver.

Then of course, there are normal CCTV cameras in shops which are privately owned. Most shops and petrol stations have a have a CCTV system and rightly so.

However, there are many many government CCTV systems which are remotely controlled from a central monitoring sytem and they are there to form a deterrent to street crime and general thuggery.
Unfortunatley, some areas of the law don’t allow video evidence in court so the point of having such cameras is somewhat redundant.

[quote]Any fresher and it would still be wiggling!

[/quote]

:laughing:

Well, this subject has been bandied about for quite some time in the UK. Not least since earlier this year when the government thought it would be a good idea to allow council inspectors into you house to ammend the amount of tax you pay according to the size and number of your bathrooms, your garden and…get this…the view.

If you don’t let them in, you can end up in gaol.

Looks like we are going to have a repeat of the window tax problem where, about 150 years ago, people bricked up their windows because the government imposed tariffs omn windows.

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[quote=“Dangermouse”]…earlier this year when the government thought it would be a good idea to allow council inspectors into you house to ammend the amount of tax you pay according to the size and number of your bathrooms, your garden and…get this…the view.

If you don’t let them in, you can end up in gaol.

Looks like we are going to have a repeat of the window tax problem where, about 150 years ago, people bricked up their windows because the government imposed tariffs omn windows.[/quote]

That does sound funny when you picture the inspector standing there with his clipboard deciding how much in taxes he thinks your view is worth, measuring your bathroom etc., and then adding up this itemized list.

But I suppose if you are going to have property taxes based on some kind of appraised value of the home then you have to base it on something, right? I guess you could just just forget the house entirely and ask how much the land would be likely to sell for on the market (assuming buyer and seller both well informed, arms length negotiation blah blah blah) if it were a vacant lot. But if the appraised value is to take into account the value of the house itself I don’t think you can ask “How much have houses like this sold in this area gone for recently?” unless you have some criteria for deciding what a “house like this” means… :idunno:

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I agree it’s a funny picture, but I disagree that it’s logical for govt tax inspectors to be authorized access to the interior of one’s home.

I believe they can adequately judge “houses like this” by doing a drive-by and/or examining publicly available information such as sales prices of that house and comparable houses, and the like. After all, that’s how they do it in the US, and it’s considered good enough there, right?

Sure, they may be able to come up with a more accurate value estimate by a first-hand inspection of the interior, but (a) is it really necessary to be that accurate (should they also retain construction experts to accompany them on their appraisal inspection for even greater accuracy?), and (b) don’t the privacy concerns and additional costs of such inspections outweigh whatever heightened accuracy one could obtain?

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Yeah, I see your point, MT. I suppose they could probably come to a reasonable estimate without going in the home. Furthermore, if the blueprints for the house were available they could probably get the dimensions of the rooms and so on that way right?

Okay, it didn’t take long to convince me on this one. Your question (b) put it perfectly for me: “Don’t the privacy concerns and additional costs of such inspections outweigh whatever heightened accuracy one could obtain?” That’d be a “Yes” for me. :uhhuh:

Cheers,
H

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Of course, we Americans would be particularly opposed to such an idea in part because we have a Bill of Rights (unlike the UK), which includes provisions such as the following:

[quote]Amendment III - Quartering of Soldiers.

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV - Search and Seizure.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.[/quote]

The 4th Amendment may be more relevant, but the 3d shows why Americans have long been opposed to govt employees traipsing about on our private properties. And, as you know Hobbes, while not explicitly mentioned in the US Constitution, a right to privacy has been held to be implicit in the Bill of Rights, although it may be overcome by a compelling state interest.