ANPR Big Brother and your privacy, well you have none...

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Yep very common used for petrol theft mostly I would guess.
 
^^^^^ Congestion charge, parking and speeding to name but a few more.
 
If you are really worried about all the cameras, do not watch Person of Interest, channel 5 it will scare you sh!tless :D:D
 
This is Pete said:
Then you're advocating anarchy and an emasculated police force. Crime can happen without fear of prosecution, rampant fraud can result in taxation beyond most people's means, and drunken hit-and-run drivers can sleep peacefully at night....

Me? I'd prefer to be protected rather than neglected...

Let's be intelligent about this.

Please tell me how Increasing surveillance doesn't turn our democracy from that to a regime?

How does cameras prevent crime. Perhaps if our judicial system wasn't such a joke then crime rates would fall and if family values haven't deteriorated the way the way have over the last 60 years crime wouldn't be the thing on your mind.

As it were we don't live in that high crime a society, surveillance on us all like we are in Alcatraz is not a good idea nor will it save you from the odd scumbag.
 
This is Pete said:
And who's going to pay for enough beat officers to make up for the lack of cameras?

Less cameras and mongs behind cameras and more bobbies innit
 
According to this site:
No CCTV - Oxford ANPR camera locations

31 ANPR camera's cost them £0.7m; or £22,500(ish) each. That's not counting maintenance costs (of £1070 p.a.) plus another £26k p.a. for the CCTV operator (http://democracy.gloucester.gov.uk/committee/documents/s280/pt16115d-anpr.pdf). All that is ignoring that the camera will need to be replaced, let's say every 3-5 years (don't have a source for this, but I'm estimating it based on other CCTV/IT infrastructure. Look at where CCTV was 3-5 years ago)

According to this site, the average police officer salary is £25,317 after their training and £35-£40k for a sergeant with a few years experience)
Police officer: Salary and conditions | Prospects.ac.uk

So are you really suggesting that for you would rather spend £22,000 on a camera versus £25,000 on a policeman?

Finally - I'm still waiting for ANYONE to post their personal details here, as requested multiple posts ago as evidence that had nothing to hide...

M.
 
The reason I wouldn't post personal details here isn't because I have something to hide but because I don't want to be the recipient of unwanted "gifts"...
 
Finally - I'm still waiting for ANYONE to post their personal details here, as requested multiple posts ago as evidence that had nothing to hide...

You realise that there is a difference between not hiding something, and publicly displaying something?
It is possible for there to be an area in between the two extremes, rather than all or nothing.

I'm not particularly fussed by CCTV, and I don't believe I have anything to hide, but that doesn't mean I will go around publicly broadcasting pictures of my genitals, and my bank account details, it's common sense.
 
srefre said:
You realise that there is a difference between not hiding something, and publicly displaying something?
It is possible for there to be an area in between the two extremes, rather than all or nothing.

I'm not particularly fussed by CCTV, and I don't believe I have anything to hide, but that doesn't mean I will go around publicly broadcasting pictures of my genitals, and my bank account details, it's common sense.

As is spinals post.

CCTV costs a lot to run and set up and isn't nearly as effective ad proper policing.
 
CCTV costs a lot to run and set up and isn't nearly as effective ad proper policing.

It's a tool not a magic bullet.

I have seen temporary CCTV installations setup by the police and councils quell problems - as long as they actually react and set them up in time.
 
Someone stole my number plates a few weeks ago, ANPR defeated with a screwdriver...

Actually it's not an issue of ANPR being defeated but having a different set of information to deal with.

If ANPR was real time and national then recognising a duplicate set of plates appearing allows an immediate reaction. So if the system really did work the last thing you'd want to do is be in a vehicle with cloned plates because to the system it would be like a big red flashing light on your car saying 'stop me'. Bit of an inconvenience to the source car and its driver because they would also be stopped - but once people realised that it work it would be a deterrent to cloning in the first place.
 
As is spinals post.

CCTV costs a lot to run and set up and isn't nearly as effective ad proper policing.

Not questioning that at all.

I was purely responding to the part of Spinals post requesting people who say they have nothing to hide to post personal information.
 
What when surveillence is used to enforce laws we disagree with? What when singing, dancing, art, photography, music.....are outlawed? (There are places in the world where those things are not permitted, and people in this country who would like them to be outlawed here).
 
We have to remember what privacy actually is. It is not interchangeable with anonymity, but traces its route in society and culture to to those parts of personal life that individuals deem to segregated, or put apart from, others.

Some cultures and society have little or no concept of privacy. Others enshrine privacy in legal or constitutional terms.

Whilst there may be a desire to keep all aspects of one's life segregated from society, there has to be some consideration between wanting to engage and participate in society and relinquishing some aspects of privacy. So if I want to use the net, I expect that many organisations will have details of my virtual journey. As soon as I walk out of my front door I can be observed and monitored by nosey neighbours, security guards, police officers, etc. The government knows how much I earn, my bank knows my spending patterns, and the telco knows who I spend time on the phone to (and on a mobile, where from).

I know that is going to happen, and that's part of the "contract" resulting from being an active member of society. That is very different to me opening up details of bank accounts or phone conversations to the general public - in that case there is no contract or duty of care, and the personal risks involved are very high.

When it comes to ANPR we know what its used for and so are fully aware of the risks involved. Unlike the STASI, neither the intelligence services or the police have the manpower to monitor individual movements beyond those they are interested in. So, for me, there is little personal risk involved at the moment and I'm not so interested in the segregation of my movements from everyone else. Realistically that's unlikely to change unless there is a big change in taxation in this country.

The use of CCTV is subtly different. It would seem that actively-managed systems (those in town centres for example that are centrally monitored) do prove effective in being able to mobilise police officers to incidents and identifying the perpetrators of crime. Passive systems (those that just record) seem to be of minimal use - they seem to be poorly maintained and so any record they do make is of little use. Those bent on criminal behaviour know this and so they have little or no impact.

Spinal unfortunately pulled together a number of unrelated things. The £0.7m cost of phases 1&2 of the Oxford ANPR system he quotes is for the system, not the cameras only. At the back end is a pretty expensive traffic management system bundled in with the cost. Maintenance includes the annual running costs of both the comms line and electricity. Reading the report fully shows that Gloucester appointed an additional CCTV operator, not related to the ANPR system that report was covering, and this was funded by the police. That report also gave an insight into some of the efficiency gains made through more effective targeting of police resources:

"Officers working on ANPR teams arrest 10 times more offenders than the average
non ANPR-directed officer.
Arrests are mostly for significant numbers of robbery, vehicle crime, theft, burglary
and drug offences.
57% of people stop searched as the result of an ANPR alert were arrested,
compared to 14% when stop-searched not as a result of an ANPR alert.
75% of arrests from ANPR alerts (excluding warrants) resulted in a charge,
compared to 45% of non ANPR cases.
Only 12 % of ANPR arrests resulted in a ‘refused charge’, compared to 21% for
non-ANPR arrests.
Vehicle crime has fallen by 13% in ANPR areas, in contrast to rises elsewhere in
the country."


So the investment in technology seems to help the police be more effective.

Be that as it may, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't keep watch on the individual-society privacy relationship. That would be foolish. However, it's equally foolish to listen and report on one side of the story only.
 
We have to remember what privacy actually is. It is not interchangeable with anonymity, but traces its route in society and culture to to those parts of personal life that individuals deem to segregated, or put apart from, others.

Some cultures and society have little or no concept of privacy. Others enshrine privacy in legal or constitutional terms.

Whilst there may be a desire to keep all aspects of one's life segregated from society, there has to be some consideration between wanting to engage and participate in society and relinquishing some aspects of privacy. So if I want to use the net, I expect that many organisations will have details of my virtual journey. As soon as I walk out of my front door I can be observed and monitored by nosey neighbours, security guards, police officers, etc. The government knows how much I earn, my bank knows my spending patterns, and the telco knows who I spend time on the phone to (and on a mobile, where from).

I know that is going to happen, and that's part of the "contract" resulting from being an active member of society. That is very different to me opening up details of bank accounts or phone conversations to the general public - in that case there is no contract or duty of care, and the personal risks involved are very high.

When it comes to ANPR we know what its used for and so are fully aware of the risks involved. Unlike the STASI, neither the intelligence services or the police have the manpower to monitor individual movements beyond those they are interested in. So, for me, there is little personal risk involved at the moment and I'm not so interested in the segregation of my movements from everyone else. Realistically that's unlikely to change unless there is a big change in taxation in this country.

The use of CCTV is subtly different. It would seem that actively-managed systems (those in town centres for example that are centrally monitored) do prove effective in being able to mobilise police officers to incidents and identifying the perpetrators of crime. Passive systems (those that just record) seem to be of minimal use - they seem to be poorly maintained and so any record they do make is of little use. Those bent on criminal behaviour know this and so they have little or no impact.

Spinal unfortunately pulled together a number of unrelated things. The £0.7m cost of phases 1&2 of the Oxford ANPR system he quotes is for the system, not the cameras only. At the back end is a pretty expensive traffic management system bundled in with the cost. Maintenance includes the annual running costs of both the comms line and electricity. Reading the report fully shows that Gloucester appointed an additional CCTV operator, not related to the ANPR system that report was covering, and this was funded by the police. That report also gave an insight into some of the efficiency gains made through more effective targeting of police resources:

"Officers working on ANPR teams arrest 10 times more offenders than the average
non ANPR-directed officer.
Arrests are mostly for significant numbers of robbery, vehicle crime, theft, burglary
and drug offences.
57% of people stop searched as the result of an ANPR alert were arrested,
compared to 14% when stop-searched not as a result of an ANPR alert.
75% of arrests from ANPR alerts (excluding warrants) resulted in a charge,
compared to 45% of non ANPR cases.
Only 12 % of ANPR arrests resulted in a ‘refused charge’, compared to 21% for
non-ANPR arrests.
Vehicle crime has fallen by 13% in ANPR areas, in contrast to rises elsewhere in
the country."

So the investment in technology seems to help the police be more effective.

Be that as it may, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't keep watch on the individual-society privacy relationship. That would be foolish. However, it's equally foolish to listen and report on one side of the story only.



Post of the year. :thumb:
 

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