Europe and privacy rights

[Peter]

I think it's not so much the case that Europeans oppose Google streetview while approving of bin microchipping and public surveilence, and more the case that we don't like any of it, but feel powerless to stop the government intrusions, so we focus on battles that we at least have some chance of winning, like Google streetview.

Somebody came up the idea and the people there allowed it to be implemented

UK politicians seem to have significant authoritarian leanings, little Hitlers abound in local government and the general public are too mild-mannered for their own good and too trusting of authority.  There's also a large, politically active crowd of 'nothing to hide, nothing to fear', 'send the immigrants back', 'lets all live in a police state' types here, and government at a national and local level tends to be swayed by whoever has the biggest bug up their arse.  

A lot of people might accept the privacy intrusions in the same way little Jimmy accepts that daddy has to apply the medicated ointment to his anus and rub it in with his cock each Wednesday evening while mum is away. We've been told over and over again that the CCTV, speed cameras, face recognition, deep packet inspection etc is making us safer and improving our lives, and that it's for our own good, even if we don't enjoy it.  Most people seem to believe it, or only have occasional doubts that a particular speed trap is more for collecting fines than promoting safety, and don't question the function or efficacy of the rapidly expanding surveillance system as a whole, or recognise the danger that it poses.

Good comparison  

We have them here too but there are many against it all also and they put money into fighting it on both sides of the political spectrum

We don't have much of an anti-government movement here, and nothing like the armed, dangerous and unmedicated militia groups and crazies in the US that threaten to snap, crackle and pop whenever the political winds turn against them.  All that we seem to have on the anti-government front are some students and hippies that get beaten and arrested by the police whenever they try to peacefully protest against something, and comedians like Mark Thomas.

[Parts]

I think it's not so much the case that Europeans oppose Google streetview while approving of bin microchipping and public surveilence, and more the case that we don't like any of it, but feel powerless to stop the government intrusions, so we focus on battles that we at least have some chance of winning, like Google streetview.

Somebody came up the idea and the people there allowed it to be implemented

UK politicians seem to have significant authoritarian leanings, little Hitlers abound in local government and the general public are too mild-mannered for their own good and too trusting of authority.  There's also a large, politically active crowd of 'nothing to hide, nothing to fear', 'send the immigrants back', 'lets all live in a police state' types here, and government at a national and local level tends to be swayed by whoever has the biggest bug up their arse.  

A lot of people might accept the privacy intrusions in the same way little Jimmy accepts that daddy has to apply the medicated ointment to his anus and rub it in with his cock each Wednesday evening while mum is away. We've been told over and over again that the CCTV, speed cameras, face recognition, deep packet inspection etc is making us safer and improving our lives, and that it's for our own good, even if we don't enjoy it.  Most people seem to believe it, or only have occasional doubts that a particular speed trap is more for collecting fines than promoting safety, and don't question the function or efficacy of the rapidly expanding surveillance system as a whole, or recognise the danger that it poses.

Good comparison  

We have them here too but there are many against it all also and they put money into fighting it on both sides of the political spectrum

We don't have much of an anti-government movement here, and nothing like the armed, dangerous and unmedicated militia groups and crazies in the US that threaten to snap, crackle and pop whenever the political winds turn against them.  All that we seem to have on the anti-government front are some students and hippies that get beaten and arrested by the police whenever they try to peacefully protest against something, and comedians like Mark Thomas.

I like to think they keep each other in check.

[Peter]

i don't give a shit if there's a cctv camera on me when i'm in public... i'm in public

if the government were putting cameras in my bedroom then maybe i would have a problem

the pros outweigh the cons imo - cctv cameras are useful

Useful for what?  Crime prevention?  Research released by the UK Home Office shows that they have a very marginal effect on crime, and the cost of installing and maintaining them is often greater than the savings from the costs associated with the crimes they prevent.

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs05/hors292.pdf

[Adam]

maybe not crime prevention, but i would definitely rather have someon caught on cctv that can be looked at than have them get away with it. and regardless of statistics, plenty of crimes HAVE been solved with the use of cctv footage

[Peter]

maybe not crime prevention, but i would definitely rather have someon caught on cctv that can be looked at than have them get away with it. and regardless of statistics, plenty of crimes HAVE been solved with the use of cctv footage

I'm going to bed, but here's something to consider:

It's official! CCTV cameras do not cut crime. Except possibly theft from cars left in car parks. I said as much in my book The Rotten State of Britain, published a year ago (watch out for the paperback, coming soon).

But now a major (and expensive) study by the Metropolitan Police has come to the same conclusion. There are about a million CCTV cameras in London, and – industry experts estimate – about 3.8 million in the country as a whole. But only one crime is solved for every 1,000 CCTV cameras. The Met figures show that each case helped by the use of CCTV costs about £20,000 to solve.

The rapid spread of CCTV cameras has gone hand in hand with a massive increase in crime, particularly violent crime. People demand CCTV because it makes them feel safer. Unfortunately it doesn't actually make them safer. All it does is subject them to snooping and abuse. Local councils had to be told to cut back their snooping on people they suspected of leaving their wheelie-bin lids open, or letting their dogs foul the pavement. Other officials have used cameras to ogle female airport passengers. Given the number of people with access to CCTV images, it can't be long before we find people being blackmailed over them, as has happened in the US. Maybe it's already happened here too.

While CCTV images may give officials a thrill, the Met study confirms that they are utterly useless in prosecuting cases. Often, the images are not clear enough to make an identification that would stand up beyond reasonable doubt. More often still, the images are not securely stored – so the courts throw them out, on the grounds that they might have been tampered with.

So why do we have CCTV at all? I suspect it's mostly officials covering their backs. If crime occurs and they have done nothing, they will get criticized. If they put up CCTV, at least they can say they made an effort, even though it didn't work out, as it (almost) never does. And for that, we are compromising our privacy and passing more potential power on to the authorities. Not worth it, I would say – if we ever got so much as a national debate on the subject, which of course we won't.

[Parts]

maybe not crime prevention, but i would definitely rather have someon caught on cctv that can be looked at than have them get away with it. and regardless of statistics, plenty of crimes HAVE been solved with the use of cctv footage

And think of all the ones you'd catch if you put them inside everyone's house too

[Adam]

i still don't see what the big problem is. if you're in public, you're in public

[Parts]

Where does pubic start and stop? Just the street or private property also?  Who controls and has access to the feeds and what do they do with the information?

[Adam]

if you're walking down the street then you're in public

if you're in a shop then you know there/s probably a cctv camera on you

i still don't see the big problem - they're not putting cameras in your bedroom

[TheoK]

In Sweden people protest against the surveillance and crimes that the legislators are committing against the constitution, the EU Declaration of Civil Rights and the §12 in the Declaration of Human Rights, but that won't stop the ones in charge.

They should be dragged out of the parliament and hanged from the lamp-posts, since that seems to be the only way to show them that they aren't God but power-abusing shitheads and criminals, but it won't happen. Swedes are pretty much like Brits - too civilized for their own good.

[Peter]

i still don't see what the big problem is. if you're in public, you're in public

Being watched by a security technician through a CCTV camera while I walk along the street doesn't bother me more than being watched by pedestrians, drivers and other people who're physically present in the area (which, incidentally, does bother me, and I prefer it when nobody else is around).

What I see as 'The Big Problem' is that with increasingly sophisticated and integrated surveillance systems, we'll soon reach a point where anyone with the right security clearance, or anyone who finds one of those laptops or flash drives with unencrypted national databases that civil servants keep leaving in taxis, trains and buses, will be able to run a query on a person and be informed of the places they've been, when they were there, who they've associated with, what websites they've visited, what search terms they've typed into Google, what they've spent their money on and so on. 

It'll be like having a private investigator on steroids following us around wherever we go, and the information won't be made publicly available, where it might expose all the crap that politicians and government officials get up to and usher in a new era of honesty and openness.  It'll be available to authoritarian bureaucrats who obsess over who's putting too much in their wheelie bin, creepy stalkers who hold government jobs and want fuck up the lives of their ex's, politicians who're trying to win votes with the latest paedophile/drugs/terrorism witchhunt and criminal organisations that purchased a laptop or flash drive from a homeless guy who found it on the seat of a bus.