Surveillance UK: why this revolution is only the start
From By Steve Connor, Science Editor, The Independent
The new national surveillance network for tracking car journeys, which has taken
more than 25 years to develop, is only the beginning of plans to monitor the
movements of all British citizens. The Home Office Scientific Development Branch
in Hertfordshire is already working on ways of automatically recognising human
faces by computer, which many people would see as truly introducing the prospect
of Orwellian street surveillance, where our every move is recorded and stored by
machines.
Although the problems of facial recognition by computer are far more formidable
than for car number plates, experts believe it is only a matter of time before
machines can reliably pull a face out of a crowd of moving people. If the police and security services can show that a national surveillance operation based on recording car movements can protect the public against criminals and terrorists, there will be a strong political will to do the same with street cameras designed to monitor the flow of human traffic. A major feature of the national surveillance centre for car numbers is the ability to trawl through records of previous sightings to build up an intelligence picture of a vehicle's precise whereabouts on the road network. However, the Home Office and police believe that the Big Brother nature of the operation can be justified on the basis of the technology's proven ability to catch criminals. "In simple terms criminals use vehicles. If you want to commit a crime, you're going to use a vehicle," said Frank Whiteley, the Chief Constable of Hertfordshire, who leads the project. " There is nothing secretive about it and we don't want it to be secret, because we want people to feel safer, to see that they are protected."
A 13-month pilot scheme between 2003 and 2004 found the performance of the police improved dramatically when they had access automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras. Project Laser 2 involved 23 police forces using specially fitted vans with ANPR cameras linked to a police database. It led to a fivefold increase in the arrest rate for frontline officers. But these mobile units will constitute only a tiny proportion of the many thousands of ANPR cameras that by next year will be feeding more than 35 million number plate "reads" every day into the new national data centre at Hendon, north London, the same site as the Police National Computer. Mr Whiteley, chairman of the ANPR steering committee, said the intention eventually was to move from the "low thousands" of cameras to the "high thousands".
By March next year, most motorways, main roads, town centres and petrol station
forecourts will be also covered. Some cameras may be disguised for covert operations but the majority will be ordinary CCTV traffic cameras converted to read number plates. "What we're trying to do as far as we can is to stitch together the existing camera network rather than install a huge number of new cameras," Mr Whiteley said.
Supermarkets are soon to agree a deal that will lead to all cars entering their garage forecourts having details of their number plates sent to Hendon. In return, the retailers will receive warning information about those drivers most likely to "bilk" - drive off without paying their bill. The plan beyond March 2006 - when the national data centre goes live - is to expand the capacity of the system to log the time, date and whereabouts of up to 100 million number plates a day. "In crude terms we're interested in between two and three per cent of all vehicles on the roads," Mr Whiteley said. "We can use ANPR on investigations or we can use it looking forward in a proactive, intelligence way. Things like building up the lifestyle of criminals - where they are going to be at certain times. We seek to link the criminal to the vehicle through intelligence. Vehicles moving on the roads are open to police scrutiny at any time. The Road Traffic Act gives us the right to stop vehicles at any time for any purpose. So criminals on public roads are vulnerable.
Are we feeling spied on yet?
7 comments:
I have a sudden urge to be like the rebels in the apocalyptic sci-fi movies (like Terminator) and "drop off the grid".
Nice back-drop in the picture. That's original artwork from the 1984 book.
dbackdad said: Nice back-drop in the picture. That's original artwork from the 1984 book.
Good guess. It's actually a publicity shot of Edmond O'Brian who played Winston Smith in the 1956 movie version of 1984. I thought it was SUCH a good picture that I had to drop it in somewhere.
I know what you mean about 'dropping off the grid'.
Did you hear that all cell phones in the USA are going to be fitting with GPS from next year - as a compulsorary measure so that they can be tracked more easily? Doesn't that give you a warm & fuzzy feeling? Especially with all the latest revelations from the Bush Jr camp.....
It already happens - number plate recognition in all motorway services, GPS in all UK phones (well, not quite, but every phone can be tracked to within 1/2 meter by the mobile phone companies, as long as it is switched on).
Nope, not feeling spied on. Nobody is watching really. it goes into a computer & only gets pulled out if there is a reason. Since I don't give them a reason to pull out my info, they have no need to bother!
Mrs A said: Since I don't give them a reason to pull out my info, they have no need to bother!
If you've got nothing to fear etc..
I guess that I'm just a little more paranoid than you are. I don't like things that are SO open to abuse and mistakes. I guess we'll see how it works out.
But CK, you're life is soooo boring, nobody can be bothered to watch where you going and what you're doing! In fact, we don't have the manpower to watch the people who really could do with watching, never mind all the rest of us.
My mother was under survellence for a couple of weeks back in the 60's (it's quite a funny story actually), and they only "checked in" every now & then, & just hoped she didn't do anything nasty out of hours, as it were:-)
Mrs A said: In fact, we don't have the manpower to watch the people who really could do with watching, never mind all the rest of us.
That's the wonderful thing about technology... Computers can do all the boring stuff.... That's why they're so keen on things like face recognition software.
God, how frghteningly Orwellian. I guess when i finally make it to the ancestral home, I will have to drive the whole time with my middle finger extended, just for effect!
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