Nanny loves to show that she is a leader, and that Britain leads the world in "innovation" and "social engineering".As the New Year approaches we can rest easy, in the knowledge that Nanny's Britain is about to take the lead in another area of technology.
Britain is to become the first country in the world where the movements of all vehicles on the roads are to be recorded. This new national surveillance system will hold the records for at least two years.
Nanny will use a network of cameras to automatically read every car number plate. Nanny plans to build a huge database of vehicle movements, so that her police and security services can analyse any journey a driver has made over several years.
Nanny's CCTV network will use the thousands of existing CCTV cameras which will be converted to read number plates automatically night and day, and to provide 24/7 coverage of all motorways and main roads, as well as towns, cities, ports and petrol-station forecourts.
Nanny has planned that by next March a central database installed alongside the Police National Computer in Hendon. Nanny's database will store the details of 35 million number-plate "reads" per day. These will include time, date and precise location, with camera sites monitored by global positioning satellites.
She already has plans to extend the database by increasing the storage period to five years, and by linking thousands of additional cameras so that details of up to 100 million number plates can be fed each day into the central databank.
The movements of all law-abiding people will soon be routinely recorded, and kept on Nanny's database for years.
Nanny's scheme is backed by the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), and will cost £24M for the equipment.
Already, over 50 of Nanny's local authorities have signed agreements to allow the police to convert thousands of existing traffic cameras, so they can read number plates automatically.
Nanny is also on the verge of making agreements with the Highways Agency, supermarkets and petrol station owners to incorporate their own CCTV cameras into the network.
Frank Whiteley, Chief Constable of Hertfordshire and chairman of the Acpo steering committee on automatic number plate recognition (ANPR), said:
"Every time you make a car journey already, you'll be on CCTV somewhere.
The difference is that,
in future,
the car's index plates will be read as well.
What the data centre should be able to tell you is
where a vehicle was in the past and where it is now,
whether it was or wasn't at a particular location, and the routes taken to and from those crime scenes.
Particularly important are associated vehicles".
The question is, do we trust Nanny to use this data for our own good?
Something to cogitate on, whilst you are munching on the remains of your turkey.
railwayman39!
ReplyDeleteYou should be more careful about your means of travel to your cash in hand jobs - we can track your every movement and my extra tax inspectors are even now analysing the movements of all vehicles you own (except your bicycle) to assess your next tax bill.
Next year we will tell you we have full facial recognition systems in place so all movements can be tracked on a personal level - unless you are wearing a hoodie.
Ergo all hoodie wearers wi;; autoamtically be considered to be criminals trying to hide their identity. They will become a prime target for the 500,000 street monitors we will shortly be recruiting to drive crime off the streets.
The street monitors will be empowered to issue £30 fpn's to anyone wearing a hoodie to obscure their identity and so bring the pavements into line with the fixed penalties for having an unreadable (read personalised) number plate - a much more serious crime than anything else on the roads since it makes it difficult for nanny to watch your movements.
You have been warned! And you thought the concept of having a Passport to Pimlico was fiction - ha! Now you know the real thinking that went onto it!
Your Guardian Angel,
B Brother.
"Be safe, be seen."
A small technical note Ken - GPS systems, no matter what their name, are simply passive networks of satellites that provide signals for devices to calculate their (the device's) position based on triangulation with some clever maths attached.
ReplyDeleteSo a fixed camera is hardly going to require GPS capabilities for any purpose other than reporting where it is should some terrorist decide to remove it and leave it somewhere else.
The CCTV network is a bit of a white elephant for the primary objective of raising money through road charging. This long term EU objective will require either RFID tags in number plates and millions of tag readers dotted around the place OR a black box in the vehicle tracking (via GPS records) where the vehicle has been with the records being supplied to Nanny by some means on a regular basis. Quite how the charges would be levied should a recorder suffer 'technical difficulties' is currently anyone's guess.
Whichever method is chosen it occurs to me that far from getting crime off the streets Nanny is simply trying to legitimise most of it as highway robbery.
In many new laws these days we can see the future patterns and principles.
Take a vehicle off the road and forget to declare that it SORN (Statutory Off Road Notice) - that'll be £80 please, on an annula basis for persistent offenders. Guilt assumed.
£80 for an admin offence with no crime committed!
SO what should the sentences be for Nanny's little lapses of reading of Security documentation and consequent expensive conflicts with former allies? (Just to take an example that came to mind ...)
Of course most of us have been trackable for years - or at least anyone who carries a mobile phone and keeps it switched on is roughly trackable. The only problem is that it is very clear that the thing being tracked is the phone, not the person. But connect that movement record to the cctv camera records and voila - movements retraced and replayed.
So what is the purpose of GPS in the Nanny's mind? DOes she perhaps misunderstand what it can do? Or is there much more to the Galileo system than we have been told?
The numbers don't stack up:
ReplyDeletethere are about 35 million vehicles on the roads, and the ANPR system is said to record 35 million 'hits' per day. That's 1 'hit' per vehicle per day - hardly enough for location tracking.
Say nanny needs 20 'hits' per vehicle per day to perform effective tracking, then only 5% of vehicles can be tracked.
Also, the £24 million price tag looks suspect. Has nanny considered the data storage cost, data flow rate, transaction rate? A network of this size and transaction rate is comparable with banking networks (espec. credit card processing), or telephone billing data.
This looks like macho techno posturing, way in excess of real capability, by our favourite guardian.
Usually public opinion is dulled and slow on the uptake of any intrusion into one's privacy, and this undoubtedly is. So just watch, if the balloon of outrage goes up, Nanny will attempt to link it in with 'combating terrorism' and 'organised crime'.
ReplyDeleteVery funny and routinely predictable of Blair, Clarke and their chums. But what is funnier is that if I were a terrorist or criminal out on a dubious trip in my vehicle, all it would simply take is a few alterations with some black insulating tape to turn my L's into E's, I's into R's and so forth on my number plates, to confuse and confound Mr Plod and his little Government secret helpers.
And in answer to the overriding question, no, I don't trust Nanny one inch now - trust dissipated years ago. If they can lie to us about WMD .....
piv said:
ReplyDelete"But what is funnier is that if I were a terrorist or criminal out on a dubious trip in my vehicle, all it would simply take is a few alterations with some black insulating tape to turn my L's into E's, I's into R's and so forth on my number plates, to confuse and confound Mr Plod and his little Government secret helpers."
Of course the really organised crim, having stolen some plates from another vehicle to put on his nicked transport (double confusion) would then send his or her 'known' plates off on a wild goose chase around a well cctv populated route thus creating an excellent alibi for why he or she could not possibly have been present when some distant crime was committed.
Pretty soon we reach the ethical question about is it reasonable to insist all people have tracking devices embedded (and working, fpn if not) at birth? And then what do you do about visitors to the country taking advantage of the tourist industry, social services or free health care?
Fit tracking devices at the port of entry?
Err, come to think of it that's not a bad idea.
I change my mind. I now think that presonal tracking devices are an excellent idea and I think the enormous potential of such devices should be promoted to the population in full detail as quickly as possible.
The Gestapo ran Europe with a card index system ... just think what they could have done with a database and computer!
ReplyDeleteI've already commented on this on my own blog. I do know that on the M42 where they have introduced ATM, there is a number plate recognition camera every 500m. A trifle over the top methinks ...
Philb makes an interesting comparison.
ReplyDeleteOne suspects that the Card Index system may have been more reliable but then they didn't much care who they 'caught'.
The idea of huge numbers of cctv cams in one place does seem a bit worrying - but the more data the generate the better the chances of the system failing and if a lot of what they have represents only a very small area, I won't complain.
What would be interesting is to spend an hour or two driving around somewhere 'sensitive' looking for a parking space and then wait to see how long before you get a knock on the door at 3 am.
You really think keeping tabs on every car in the country is wrong? Are you guys all boy-racing tax-dodgers? If not, you've nothing to worry about. Keeping tab of all cars could eliminate speeding, as the state would know exactly when and who was speeding.
ReplyDeleteSpeeding may only accound for 7% of all road-deaths, but those 7% are dying needlesly.
Ditto with CCTV footage. I think I'm fairly liberal, but whats wrong with all public places being monitored? YOu've only got something to worry about if you're a criminal. "BUT ANDY! THEN WE WONT HAVE PRIVACY IN PUBLIC!" Obviously! If you want privacy, don't go to public places, they're PUBLIC! I am strongly against the state spying on its citizens in their own homes, in PRIVATE and I would fight to stop this.
In summery, authority is a GOOD thing. It is neccessary for there to be society, computers and the very website you are reading from now. AS long as authority can be challenged (such as elections) and can be monitored (independant watchdogs) we should all be glad to be living in one of the greatest civilisations on the planet.
PS Stop reffering to anything slightly anti-liberal as the USSR or 1984. Those were twisted regimes built on fear, unlike ours which is based on individual rights
Andy,
ReplyDeleteI could not disagree with you more!! Many of those with your mentality seem to have now got themselves into decision making positions and are the reason why this country is rapidly going 'down the tubes', weighed under with idiotic politicians, bureaucrats, red tape and political correctness. Just because I have 'nothing to hide' does not mean that I have no objection to every egghead bureaucrat, politician or policeman knowing all my business!!
I hope that my position is made abundantly clear, and as soon as the clowns who share your mentality realise that many of us object to this intrusive thinking, then the sooner we can get back to "being one of the greatest civilisations on the planet" as you seem to think we are at the moment.
And as regards your comment "those were twisted regimes built on fear, unlike ours which is based on individual rights" I would state that Blair, Bluckett, Clarke, Brown and the others all seem hell-bent on further eroding our rights as each day passes, mainly on the back of the much hyped "terrorism" excuse. They are a complete disgrace to this country, which has, in the past, prided itself on our freedoms and rights!!
One day they will have their come-uppance, as the ordinary voting citizens, sickened with their legacy, turn their backs on them. And not before time too.
spiv I have found an 'Andy' on almost all discussions groups. They tend to be young and impressionable and Blair's education system is doing its work well.
ReplyDeleteGreat site, hope to find it again. When will the voters rid us of this corruption?
I have to admit I was dissapointed by both of the responses. You share the Tory style of character attack, and no substance. I'm no fool, I appreciate what I beleive is right, may not be. There is no ultimate truth, natural justice or 'correct morality'
ReplyDeleteMy values mean a lot me. Despite my approval of the surveilance state, I feel people should have total control over their bodies. What you wish to do to your body is no buisness of the state. Isn't anyone else pissed off with the disgusting and GROWING gap between rich and poor in this country? This country has helped shape a better PEACEFUL Europe and we should be proud. No more shall tens of thousands of young men die at each others arms.
But no. Now we're at peace with the rest of Europe, we're actually MORE suspicious than when we were at war with them.
Anyway, to conclude; The serveilance state HAS been used to oppress people, I agree. However, in the right hands (with independ watchdogs and free press) it can be the best tool to PROTECT the fundemental rights (free speach, religion, freedom of sexuality) that has made this country what it is.
I know it's not perfect, but if we just bitch about it, we're not getting any closer to fixing it
Andy, you state "I have to admit I was dissapointed by both of the responses". Well, sorry to have disappointed you (actually, I could not care less), but I can also myself state that I am similarly disappointed in the antics of Blair and his cronies in this country. And sorry to disappoint you again, but I am not a Tory, in fact, I welcomed a change of government back in 1997, not then knowing, of course, what hidden agenda was in store for all of us. I wouldn't even give the time of day to this shower now.
ReplyDeleteYour politics are what is now destroying this country like some invasive cancer. One day you will mature and grow, and the disastrous policies of these clowns will dawn upon you, that I will guarantee
Firstly spiv, I'd like to point out casually accusing someone of being Conservative is not something I do lightly. What I typed was; 'You share the Tory style of character attack, and no substance.' However, you completely confirmed this with your last response, a hollow, rage-filled attempt at conversation. Your most likely not Conservative, but using their style of debate doesn't do you justice. In regards to anyone who struggles to comprehend several words strung together, I'll try to keep future posts simple.
ReplyDeleteNext, you say '(actually, I could not care less)', although I'm sure any neutral reader would beleive that whilst typing your hate-filled reply you must have been at least moderately pissed off. If you really couldn't care less, how about giving sensible conversation a go? I know, I know, 98% of internet speak is either flaming, cybersex or 13 year olds saying LOL over and over, but THE best way to learn more of this wonderful world we live on is through rational debate.
By the way, Policies don't destroy countries. They can't. They can change a nation, for better or worse, but they can't DESTROY them. Can we turn down the dramatics please?
I came to this site under the impression I could engage in RATIONAL debates, such as the relationship between the individual and society. All I get is a torrent of neurotic abuse. Anyone want to converse like an adult?
Anyone?
I am a law abiding citizen I do not wish for movments in MY fully legal vehicle to be tracked and logged DAILY for years to come.
ReplyDeleteAndy,
Could you tell me where you pulled the statistic of 7% of road deaths were caused by speeding, as my understanding leads me to believe that EXCESSIVE speed is indeed the 7% factor, this is not the same as speeding, accidents are nearly always caused by driver error, be it driving to fast for the condidtions, failing to keep the vehicle maintained, failing to leave enough distance from the vehicle infront etc etc.
Humans I.E. Trained Traffic Police are what are needed not yet more reliance on a system to catch people going over the posted limit.