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Surveillance UK: why this revolution is only the start
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2005 22:20:34 -0500
Begin forwarded message: From: "Richard M. Smith" <rms () computerbytesman com> Date: December 21, 2005 10:00:32 PM EST To: EPIC_IDOF () mailman epic orgSubject: [EPIC_IDOF] Surveillance UK: why this revolution is only the start
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article334684.ece Surveillance UK: why this revolution is only the start By Steve Connor, Science Editor Published: 22 December 2005The new national surveillance network for tracking car journeys, which has
taken more than 25 years to develop, is only the beginning of plans tomonitor the movements of all British citizens. The Home Office Scientific
Development Branch in Hertfordshire is already working on ways ofautomatically 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 moreformidable 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 anintelligence 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 provenability 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 platerecognition (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 35million 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". ... _______________________________________________ EPIC_IDOF mailing list EPIC_IDOF () mailman epic org https://mailman.epic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/epic_idof ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- Surveillance UK: why this revolution is only the start David Farber (Dec 21)