Posted by paul on May 24, 2009 – 9:36 pm
A recent edition of BBC program “Who’s Watching You” has revealed that UK police forces, with the knowledge of the UK government, is building a national grid network of ANPR cameras.
ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) cameras automatically read the number plate of passing cars and check with DVLA databases whether the vehicle is correctly registered, taxed and insured. Normally the cameras are used by police to stop offending drivers immediately.
However, the linkage of the police, council and other CCTV cameras into a nationwide network and central database means that authorities will now be able to track vehicles across cities and the whole country without anyone knowing. The database will link together sitings of a particular vehicle into a timestamped journey around the country. Since the system will automatically record all vehicles it will allow users of the database to retrospectively track any vehicle. Read More »
Posted by paul on May 6, 2009 – 10:12 pm
The BBC has reported that trials have recently occurred in Scotland of using street based CCTV cameras that monitor sounds as well.
The trials have been performed by a Dutch company called Sound Intelligence. As you pass by, the CCTV camera analyses the tone of your voice rather than what you are actually saying. Presumably if you sound stressed then you are likely to be a terrorist or mad, upon which the Big Brother police can swoop down and take you away for the good of society.
What’s next – listening in on your conversation on the street listening for significant words – like “bomb” or “airport” ???? Or maybe tapping into your phone calls or e-mails for stress or significant words. Oh, I forgot, they are already planning to do that.
Maybe they decided to trial it in Scotland to see if it could cope with the strong Scottish accent!
Via BBC
Posted by paul on May 4, 2009 – 10:51 pm
Computer security guru and privacy expert Phil Zimmerman has spoken out against the increasing use of surveillance technology in the UK.
Speaking to the BBC the article quotes Zimmerman as saying “The UK is risking sliding unwittingly into a police state because of the growing use of surveillance technology”.
Zimmerman is famous for inventing the PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) e-mail encryption technology.
Interestingly he goes on to say that electronic surveillance of UK citizens by the authorities is becoming too easy. He says that if surveillance were made harder then reduction of civil liberties would be more seriously debated.
Via BBC
