Loss of Privacy

via reddit.

The Oxford City Council has proposed that CCTV be mandatory for all taxis and that every conversion be recorded. This is, presumably, for everyone’s safety.

Such a blanket scheme would seem to breach the Information Commissioner’s code of practice on the issue. It says recording conversations is unlikely to be justified and that sound on CCTV should usually be turned off. It refers to recording in a cab occurring only if a panic button is pressed.

Yet Oxford City Council does not believe it is flouting this code, saying the risk of intrusion is acceptable compared to public safety.

Recording conversations would be justified if assaults, sex attacks or fraud was constantly being committed in our taxis.

The council would like all taxis to be fitted with CCTV by April 2015.

The necessary equipment must be installed by taxi drivers licensed for the first time by 6 April 2012. A panic button must also be fitted.

Cabs already registered will have until April 2015 to get the kit fitted, the council said.

The council said the cameras would run continuously, but only view footage relating to police matters would be reviewed.

Big Brother Watch said it was “a total disregard for civil liberties”.

She said police would only locate footage, stored on a CCTV hard drive for 28 days, if it was needed for a police investigation.

She added: “The risk of intrusion into private conversations has to be balanced against the interests of public safety, both of passengers and drivers.”

While this is presented as a means to provide public safety, the rules are too vague at this point. We do not know when the cameras will be turned on and off, who will be in charge of the storage or who will take complaints from customers. This is before anyone looks at the civil liberties issues concerning CCTV in taxis. There are far too many questions that need to be answered before a scheme such as this is even implemented. Until all concerns are addressed, it’d be best to just sit and say nothing in a taxi, lest any conversation be misinterpreted or used against you later.

There’s a new fingerprint scanner in Elmbridge and the upscale clientele at the bar have met it with skepticism and suspicion.

The technology at Noir Bar is the first in Elmbridge and is in addition to Clubscan, which scans and stores ID on entry to alert licensees about underage drinkers or banned customers in pubs and clubs.

The bar, formerly Abaya, voluntarily installed the scanner, which started working two weeks ago.

Simon Bate, licensing enforcement officer at Surrey Police, said: “If that is their condition of entry, then those are their house rules. You don’t have to go in.

This will likely be the response and many will not go in and patronize an establishment that willingly keeps databases of its clientele’s fingerprints.

“It will help keep out the underage and the undesirables.”

Ah, yes, let’s not use our brains to keep out the young ones. This is more for keeping out the riff-raff in our ever-so-exclusive club. We don’t want any chavs drinking with us. In addition to taking fingerprints, staff are also taking photographs of those who enter the bar. This should be enough for many people to simply walk away.

Paul Hopkinson, 32, a regular at Noir Bar, was asked to provide a fingerprint a fortnight ago and refused.

He said: “I was quite angry at the fact that without committing a crime, I was asked to give incredibly personal information like that.

“I don’t even have to give my fingerprints when I leave the country. It worried me about why such a night club, in such an affluent area, would have to go to such extremes for people to gain entry.

It’s hard to say if others will take the steps that Mr. Hopkinson did, but, if you value your privacy, you’ll think twice about giving up this type of personal information when you do not have a clue about how it is going to be stored or used. If you are not a criminal, then this information should never be collected.

The police, politicians and some media outlets are all blaming technology for the riots. The people are blaming an ignorant government. The two sides don’t seem like they’re going to meet anytime soon.

You can read the rest of my article at The Daily Censored.

CCTV has always been touted as a crime prevention tool. Privacy advocates have long argued that they don’t work as prevention tools. They are only good after the fact to, possibly, search and find the guilty party. It doesn’t stop crimes. This argument has been glaringly clear over the past few days in London.

From Big Brother Watch:

1) Not one aspect of our ubiquitous surveillance network, erected to watch all of us all the time, just in case, has done anything to protect Londoners in this, our hour of greatest need; and

2) In an environment in which only a finite pot of capital exists to spend on any given portfolio, that tremendously expensive network soaked up vast amounts of capital – at least some of which might have been spent on training more police officers to deal with these situations?

I’m sure all the politicians touting that CCTV will catch the rioters provides little comfort to those who have lost their homes and businesses.