UK Fears over privacy as police expand surveillance project

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Brian Randell <Brian.Randell () ncl ac uk>
Date: September 15, 2008 7:11:16 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Fears over privacy as police expand surveillance project

Dave:

For IP if you wish.

Today's (UK) Guardian has as its main front page story:

> Fears over privacy as police expand surveillance project
>
> Database to hold details of millions of journeys for five years
>
> The police are to expand a car surveillance operation that will  
> allow them to record and store details of millions of daily journeys  
> for up to five years, the Guardian has learned. A national network  
> of roadside cameras will be able to "read" 50m licence plates a day,  
> enabling officers to reconstruct the journeys of motorists. Police  
> have been encouraged to "fully and strategically exploit" the  
> database, which is already recording the whereabouts of 10 million  
> drivers a day, during investigations ranging from counter-terrorism  
> to low-level crime. But it has raised concerns from civil rights  
> campaigners, who question whether the details should be kept for so  
> long, and want clearer guidance on who might have access to the  
> material. The project relies on automatic number plate recognition  
> (ANPR) cameras to pinpoint the precise time and location of all  
> vehicles on the road. Senior officers had promised the data would be  
> stored for two years. But responding to inquiries under the Freedom  
> of Information Act, the Home Office has admitted the data is now  
> being kept for five years. Thousands of CCTV cameras across the  
> country have been converted to read ANPR data, capturing people's  
> movements in cars on motorways, main roads, airports and town  
> centres. Local authorities have since adapted their own CCTV systems  
> to capture licence plates on behalf of police, massively expanding  
> the network of available cameras. Mobile cameras have been installed  
> in patrol cars and unmarked vehicles parked by the side of roads.  
> Police helicopters have been equipped with infrared cameras that can  
> read licence plates from 610 metres (2,000ft). In four months' time,  
> when a nationwide network of cameras is fully operational, the  
> National ANPR Data Centre in Hendon, north London, will record up to  
> 50m licence plates a day. The Home Office said in a letter that the  
> Hendon database would "store all ANPR captured data for five years".  
> The photograph of a person's licence plate will, in most cases, be  
> stored for one year. Human rights group Privacy International last  
> night described the five-year record of people's car journeys  
> "unnecessary and disproportionate", and said it had lodged an  
> official complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO),  
> the government's data watchdog.

<snip>

Full story at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/sep/15/civilliberties.police

Cheers

Brian Randell


--
School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne,
NE1 7RU, UK
EMAIL = Brian.Randell () ncl ac uk   PHONE = +44 191 222 7923
FAX = +44 191 222 8232  URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/people/brian.randell




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