4 ms·

Yes, when you think about it on a fundamental level, having so many CCTV cameras recording people's movements everywhere is absolutely dystopian. It's incredibl

Yes, when you think about it on a fundamental level, having so many CCTV cameras recording people's movements everywhere is absolutely dystopian. It's incredible that it got this bad and there wasn't a backlash against it from the general public. The presence of the cameras is a marker for what's going wrong with government and society. That the state is imposing the surveillance on us. And the people happen to tolerate it. It has the potential to get worse, the Police are rolling out facial recognition, but by that time I will have left the UK for good, due to our civil liberties situation, in particular the forced encryption key disclosure laws. I wonder if those cameras will ever go away. How long is it going to take, 20 years, 50 years, or even more? When are we going to get our public spaces back? So we can be ourselves, be spontaneous, silly, eccentric, protest and so on, without experiencing the psychological effects of pervasive recording by the state. And thus the chilling effects.

dukeyukey 3y ago
> The presence of the cameras is a marker for what's going wrong with government and society. That the state is imposing the surveillance on us. I'll point out that the vast, vast majority of the UK's CCTV cameras are privately owned and installed, not connected together, but having worked in retail positions, an awful lot of them aren't even working or turned on and used soley for deterrance. Like, going by this: https://clarionuk.com/resources/how-many-cctv-cameras-are-in-london/ https://clarionuk.com/resources/how-many-cctv-cameras-are-in... (which may or may not be accurate, looks like they did their work on it), cameras controlled by the Metropolitan Police, local councils and TfL come to less than 10% of the total. Blame insurance companies, not the state.
- 1827163 3y ago
  Yes, if the public didn't accept it, then the insurance companies would not be able to get away with imposing it on us. Maybe the state was the first to introduce the cameras, once the public got accustomed to them, then private actors were able to get away with it afterwards? We also have the TfL London Underground and National Rail cameras, which are very likely to be linked to Police systems. Public transit is where people's movements can be tracked very effectively. And we now have services such as Facewatch where these private cameras are networked. And the Ring doorbell cameras. No idea what intelligence agencies might be doing with that data? Running facial recognition on every video stream? Just as they did with people's webcam images (from the Snowden leaks). https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/gchq-nsa-webcam-images-internet-yahoo https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/gchq-nsa-webca...
  - 1827163 3y ago
    The Amazon Ring camera might be a NSA, GHCQ or even an FBI camera "masquerading as a home surveillance device". They only need to process the images when motion is detected, which makes things a lot simpler. And Amazon does have a lot of contracts with the government for cloud computing services. They wouldn't want to lose those, would they? So it's a distinct possibility, given what we learned from the Snowden leaks.
mattmanser 3y ago
They're not something you really notice. It got pretty ridiculous at one point where one restaurant I knew of was told to put up 5 CCTV cameras by the police as a condition of their alcohol licence. This wasn't a pack 'em and feed 'em booze restaurant, just a perfectly normal couples style restaurant. Afaik the local council eventually reined the police in, but the police just don't seem to view any of it as a massive invasion of privacy, or consider the cost to the businesses involved. There's only upsides for the police requesting more, no downsides as they don't bear the cost.
- CTDOCodebases 3y ago
  At the moment it's ok. Most are just on record with no one actively watching them. Wait until processors for AI start getting integrated into these cameras.
  - snovv_crash 3y ago
    It becomes a real issue when the SCORPION STARE firmware gets uploaded onto them.
    - kayodelycaon 3y ago
      This is a reference to the Charles Stross's Laundry Files series. SCORPION STARE is a firmware update to CC cameras that allows any two cameras can look at a target and destroy it. Without too many spoilers, the first time it's used automatically, bad training data causes a lot of civilian casualties.
  - 1827163 3y ago
    They already are, at least with highway cameras: https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-cameras-highways-stop-trash-thrown-2023-5?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-cameras-highways-stop-tra... " AI cameras are being set up on highways to catch drivers who throw trash out of their car windows " https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/07/artificial-intelligence-cameras-litter-fines-motorways/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/07/artificial-intel...

dukeyukey 3y ago

> The presence of the cameras is a marker for what's going wrong with government and society. That the state is imposing the surveillance on us. I'll point out that the vast, vast majority of the UK's CCTV cameras are privately owned and installed, not connected together, but having worked in retail positions, an awful lot of them aren't even working or turned on and used soley for deterrance. Like, going by this: https://clarionuk.com/resources/how-many-cctv-cameras-are-in-london/ https://clarionuk.com/resources/how-many-cctv-cameras-are-in... (which may or may not be accurate, looks like they did their work on it), cameras controlled by the Metropolitan Police, local councils and TfL come to less than 10% of the total. Blame insurance companies, not the state.

1827163 3y ago
Yes, if the public didn't accept it, then the insurance companies would not be able to get away with imposing it on us. Maybe the state was the first to introduce the cameras, once the public got accustomed to them, then private actors were able to get away with it afterwards? We also have the TfL London Underground and National Rail cameras, which are very likely to be linked to Police systems. Public transit is where people's movements can be tracked very effectively. And we now have services such as Facewatch where these private cameras are networked. And the Ring doorbell cameras. No idea what intelligence agencies might be doing with that data? Running facial recognition on every video stream? Just as they did with people's webcam images (from the Snowden leaks). https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/gchq-nsa-webcam-images-internet-yahoo https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/gchq-nsa-webca...
- 1827163 3y ago
  The Amazon Ring camera might be a NSA, GHCQ or even an FBI camera "masquerading as a home surveillance device". They only need to process the images when motion is detected, which makes things a lot simpler. And Amazon does have a lot of contracts with the government for cloud computing services. They wouldn't want to lose those, would they? So it's a distinct possibility, given what we learned from the Snowden leaks.

mattmanser 3y ago

They're not something you really notice. It got pretty ridiculous at one point where one restaurant I knew of was told to put up 5 CCTV cameras by the police as a condition of their alcohol licence. This wasn't a pack 'em and feed 'em booze restaurant, just a perfectly normal couples style restaurant. Afaik the local council eventually reined the police in, but the police just don't seem to view any of it as a massive invasion of privacy, or consider the cost to the businesses involved. There's only upsides for the police requesting more, no downsides as they don't bear the cost.

CTDOCodebases 3y ago
At the moment it's ok. Most are just on record with no one actively watching them. Wait until processors for AI start getting integrated into these cameras.
- snovv_crash 3y ago
  It becomes a real issue when the SCORPION STARE firmware gets uploaded onto them.
  - kayodelycaon 3y ago
    This is a reference to the Charles Stross's Laundry Files series. SCORPION STARE is a firmware update to CC cameras that allows any two cameras can look at a target and destroy it. Without too many spoilers, the first time it's used automatically, bad training data causes a lot of civilian casualties.
- 1827163 3y ago
  They already are, at least with highway cameras: https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-cameras-highways-stop-trash-thrown-2023-5?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-cameras-highways-stop-tra... " AI cameras are being set up on highways to catch drivers who throw trash out of their car windows " https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/07/artificial-intelligence-cameras-litter-fines-motorways/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/07/artificial-intel...