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I'm old enough to remember when my colleagues were vigourously expressing concern about the potential for Oyster cards to be used to track who was protesting wh

I'm old enough to remember when my colleagues were vigourously expressing concern about the potential for Oyster cards to be used to track who was protesting where. What remains astounding about the UK is how few people benefit from this enormous scale privacy invasion. David Cameron, while leader of the opposition, managed to get his bike stolen twice, and neither time did CCTV being literally everywhere help to find who did it. Given things like that you really have to wonder what is all the surveillance for exactly?

dgellow 5mo ago
I’m sure we can find a better anecdote than a bike being stolen…
unethical_ban 5mo ago
Omniscient government surveillance in practice will be of far more use for harassment and suppressing political dissent than it ever will be used for the public good.
- bluefirebrand 5mo ago
  The road to hell is paved with good intentions Even if the people who are putting all of this surveillance in place genuinely do want to do good, the surveillance will still be in place if someone less scrupulous gains power
krisbolton 5mo ago
Did that risk materialise? I suppose it would be only the same as credit cards. With a valid warrant authorities can gain access to information. But that's within a legal system designed by an elected parliament. I'm more concerned about ensuring the legal powers are checked and balanced, and stay that way.
- like_any_other 5mo ago
  Warrants aren't all you think they are (this is for the USA, but the UK is not exactly a beacon of liberty in comparison, so I doubt it's much better): https://web.archive.org/web/20140718122350/https://www.popehat.com/2014/07/15/warrants-bulwark-of-liberty-or-paper-shield/ https://web.archive.org/web/20140718122350/https://www.popeh... > But that's within a legal system designed by an elected parliament. Ah well if it's an elected government then the risk of it turning hostile to its people is zero, of course! And ask "did that risk materialize?" to the people in China, or North Korea, or Russia, or Belarus, or Germany [1], or USA [2]. There are countless examples of the dangers of surveillance, in the present and in history - you don't need a specific example of exactly Oyster cards being used, to know they are a danger. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/03/germany-deporting-pro-palestine-eu-citizens-chilling-new-step https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/03/german... [2] https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-administration-argues-it-can-deport-prominent-anti-israel-activist-over-his-beliefs/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-administration-argues-it-ca...
- jolmg 5mo ago
  > I suppose it would be only the same as credit cards. The cards seem to accept cash
  - chadgpt3 5mo ago
    He means the tracking potential is the same. Is the Oyster card anonymous?
    - tkocmathla 5mo ago
      Yes, they can be anonymous in the sense that you can buy one in person and top it up without an ID [1]. [1] https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/ways-to-pay/where-to-buy-tickets-and-oyster#on-this-page-0 https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/ways-to-pay/where-to-buy-tickets-an...
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
    - jolmg 5mo ago
      > He means the tracking potential is the same. If you can buy and use with cash, then it isn't.
Gigachad 5mo ago
There isn’t the resources to watch all of this cctv. Sure someone could spend weeks watching all the feeds in the city to track the thief down. But the cost quickly exceeds the value of the bike. Something that’s changing with computer video and AI powered video search tools. I’m very in two minds about it. Being able to solve bike thefts would be great, but a lot of evil could come from a system that actually can monitor and sort through all this video.
- andrepd 5mo ago
  What do you mean? Pulling a few camera feeds to track down or identify a theft occurring at a known location at a roughly known time is a few minute's work. It's worth the value of the bike let alone the value of prosecuting a criminal.
  - Gigachad 5mo ago
    In my experience they will pull the video of the bike literally being stolen, but it simply shows someone in a hoodie and mask at night cutting the lock and walking off. There's nothing further you can do with this video. What you need is something like being able to search all of the cameras from a wide area which contain a bike and x color hoodie so you can follow the person back to some other location that identifies them further. This is the part that's missing in most cities. It could be done manually, and it would be if it was a very serious crime like terrorism, but for normal theft it isn't worth the time. The tech does exist now though.
  - crimsoneer 5mo ago
    This is very naive. 1. The odds of the actual bike itself being covered by CCTV during the theft is pretty slim. Nearby? Sure, but probably not recording the offence. Then unless you're got a precise time window/know where the thief went, you're stuck watching hours of footage hoping to spot the right bike. 2. Even if you do get a clear, high quality facial picture of the thief, you have no magic way of figuring out who that is. You essentially email it to all the local cops and hope someone's recognises them. The result is your bike theft turns into quite a big investigate, with a sub 5% likelihood of a position outcome.
monksy 5mo ago
> David Cameron, while leader of the opposition, managed to get his bike stolen twice, and neither time did CCTV being literally everywhere help to find who did it. Are we talking about flock cameras and the disapparence of Nancy Guthrie?
CTDOCodebases 5mo ago
This news from the UK is concerning and the UK is slowly turning into a dystopia but still your reasoning is flawed. The cameras are there to discourage crime and for use in court as evidence. Solving a crime still requires time and energy. Policing is a resources game. So of course petty crimes are still going to be committed because it’s resource intensive to have someone monitor all the cameras. That is until it isn’t and you have a backlog of video footage of crimes and AI powerful enough to detect crimes being committed in real time. Even then though police work is still required if AI isn't using face or gait detection and/or these systems aren’t hooked up to a database that has linked identifiers to real people. But even those can be defeated with a bally and a limp.
- greenavocado 5mo ago
  > slowly turning into a dystopia *has already turned into a dystopian hell hole FTFY At least China has more good weather
  - pbhjpbhj 5mo ago
    Where in the UK are you living, what's dystopian about it?
    - deletedie 5mo ago
      Arresting 1000s of pensioners for holding a disallowed placard https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/11/met-police-make-arrests-at-london-palestine-action-protest https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/11/met-police-mak...
      - subscribed 5mo ago
        And arresting them still, despite the high court ruling the ban was unlawful. People are arrested for holding placards that do not even mention the banned group. It's important to mention that the seemingly unlawful ban was imposed after the group broke into the airbase and spray-painted planes. Prime minister Keir Starmer was called a hypocrite for calling for the ban, because he was defending an activist in court after they committed pretty much identical act 20 years ago in the airbase Fairford while acting as a human rights lawyer.
hgs6 5mo ago
Illusion of Control. Oct 7th, 9/11, Snowden, Epstein are all examples of illusion being broken. The reactions are to restore illusion. But its getting harder and harder as things changes faster than reactions can happen. So we get Moises Naims prediction on the End of Power - power is easier to get, harder to use, easy to loose.
gerdesj 5mo ago
Bugger Oyster and bugger CCTV! How well protected do you think all those video doorbells are? Your comment is right minded but miss-guided. You are right to insist on privacy but you failed to note that your neighbours are not twitching their curtains beyond noting your cat is crapping on their veg. To be fair, they probably are but those door cams are probably available in forn parts, way beyond Gladys at no 9's wildest dreams. I'm old enough to remember Badgers flying across the UK! Those are fucking huge Russian four engined plodders, wheezing across at high altitude in an attempt to cow us into ... some sort of submission. Invariably a flight of Phantoms or Starfighters would whizz on up. In the good old days we'd strap a decent chap onto a firework called a Lightning. I did see a pair do that job - spectacular and I'm sure the pilots probably ended up swallowing their teeth. Russia does steam punk in some bloody odd ways. Anyway, I would avoid worrying about our state watching you and worry about other states instead.
drekipus 5mo ago
To control the "non elite"
crimsoneer 5mo ago
It's worth recognising that unlike oyster cards, LFR in it's currently form doesn't store any data. It looks at faces, compares them to currently wanted offenders, and if it matches, alerts the officers operating that camera "live". Nothing is stored or processed beyond that
jaybrendansmith 5mo ago
It's like they watched 'The Running Man' and said 'How cool would that be...?'

dgellow 5mo ago

I’m sure we can find a better anecdote than a bike being stolen…

unethical_ban 5mo ago

Omniscient government surveillance in practice will be of far more use for harassment and suppressing political dissent than it ever will be used for the public good.

bluefirebrand 5mo ago
The road to hell is paved with good intentions Even if the people who are putting all of this surveillance in place genuinely do want to do good, the surveillance will still be in place if someone less scrupulous gains power

krisbolton 5mo ago

Did that risk materialise? I suppose it would be only the same as credit cards. With a valid warrant authorities can gain access to information. But that's within a legal system designed by an elected parliament. I'm more concerned about ensuring the legal powers are checked and balanced, and stay that way.

like_any_other 5mo ago
Warrants aren't all you think they are (this is for the USA, but the UK is not exactly a beacon of liberty in comparison, so I doubt it's much better): https://web.archive.org/web/20140718122350/https://www.popehat.com/2014/07/15/warrants-bulwark-of-liberty-or-paper-shield/ https://web.archive.org/web/20140718122350/https://www.popeh... > But that's within a legal system designed by an elected parliament. Ah well if it's an elected government then the risk of it turning hostile to its people is zero, of course! And ask "did that risk materialize?" to the people in China, or North Korea, or Russia, or Belarus, or Germany [1], or USA [2]. There are countless examples of the dangers of surveillance, in the present and in history - you don't need a specific example of exactly Oyster cards being used, to know they are a danger. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/03/germany-deporting-pro-palestine-eu-citizens-chilling-new-step https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/03/german... [2] https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-administration-argues-it-can-deport-prominent-anti-israel-activist-over-his-beliefs/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-administration-argues-it-ca...
jolmg 5mo ago
> I suppose it would be only the same as credit cards. The cards seem to accept cash
- chadgpt3 5mo ago
  He means the tracking potential is the same. Is the Oyster card anonymous?
  - tkocmathla 5mo ago
    Yes, they can be anonymous in the sense that you can buy one in person and top it up without an ID [1]. [1] https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/ways-to-pay/where-to-buy-tickets-and-oyster#on-this-page-0 https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/ways-to-pay/where-to-buy-tickets-an...
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - jolmg 5mo ago
    > He means the tracking potential is the same. If you can buy and use with cash, then it isn't.

Gigachad 5mo ago

There isn’t the resources to watch all of this cctv. Sure someone could spend weeks watching all the feeds in the city to track the thief down. But the cost quickly exceeds the value of the bike. Something that’s changing with computer video and AI powered video search tools. I’m very in two minds about it. Being able to solve bike thefts would be great, but a lot of evil could come from a system that actually can monitor and sort through all this video.

andrepd 5mo ago
What do you mean? Pulling a few camera feeds to track down or identify a theft occurring at a known location at a roughly known time is a few minute's work. It's worth the value of the bike let alone the value of prosecuting a criminal.
- Gigachad 5mo ago
  In my experience they will pull the video of the bike literally being stolen, but it simply shows someone in a hoodie and mask at night cutting the lock and walking off. There's nothing further you can do with this video. What you need is something like being able to search all of the cameras from a wide area which contain a bike and x color hoodie so you can follow the person back to some other location that identifies them further. This is the part that's missing in most cities. It could be done manually, and it would be if it was a very serious crime like terrorism, but for normal theft it isn't worth the time. The tech does exist now though.
- crimsoneer 5mo ago
  This is very naive. 1. The odds of the actual bike itself being covered by CCTV during the theft is pretty slim. Nearby? Sure, but probably not recording the offence. Then unless you're got a precise time window/know where the thief went, you're stuck watching hours of footage hoping to spot the right bike. 2. Even if you do get a clear, high quality facial picture of the thief, you have no magic way of figuring out who that is. You essentially email it to all the local cops and hope someone's recognises them. The result is your bike theft turns into quite a big investigate, with a sub 5% likelihood of a position outcome.

monksy 5mo ago

> David Cameron, while leader of the opposition, managed to get his bike stolen twice, and neither time did CCTV being literally everywhere help to find who did it. Are we talking about flock cameras and the disapparence of Nancy Guthrie?

CTDOCodebases 5mo ago

This news from the UK is concerning and the UK is slowly turning into a dystopia but still your reasoning is flawed. The cameras are there to discourage crime and for use in court as evidence. Solving a crime still requires time and energy. Policing is a resources game. So of course petty crimes are still going to be committed because it’s resource intensive to have someone monitor all the cameras. That is until it isn’t and you have a backlog of video footage of crimes and AI powerful enough to detect crimes being committed in real time. Even then though police work is still required if AI isn't using face or gait detection and/or these systems aren’t hooked up to a database that has linked identifiers to real people. But even those can be defeated with a bally and a limp.

greenavocado 5mo ago
> slowly turning into a dystopia *has already turned into a dystopian hell hole FTFY At least China has more good weather
- pbhjpbhj 5mo ago
  Where in the UK are you living, what's dystopian about it?
  - deletedie 5mo ago
    Arresting 1000s of pensioners for holding a disallowed placard https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/11/met-police-make-arrests-at-london-palestine-action-protest https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/11/met-police-mak...
    - subscribed 5mo ago
      And arresting them still, despite the high court ruling the ban was unlawful. People are arrested for holding placards that do not even mention the banned group. It's important to mention that the seemingly unlawful ban was imposed after the group broke into the airbase and spray-painted planes. Prime minister Keir Starmer was called a hypocrite for calling for the ban, because he was defending an activist in court after they committed pretty much identical act 20 years ago in the airbase Fairford while acting as a human rights lawyer.

hgs6 5mo ago

Illusion of Control. Oct 7th, 9/11, Snowden, Epstein are all examples of illusion being broken. The reactions are to restore illusion. But its getting harder and harder as things changes faster than reactions can happen. So we get Moises Naims prediction on the End of Power - power is easier to get, harder to use, easy to loose.

gerdesj 5mo ago

Bugger Oyster and bugger CCTV! How well protected do you think all those video doorbells are? Your comment is right minded but miss-guided. You are right to insist on privacy but you failed to note that your neighbours are not twitching their curtains beyond noting your cat is crapping on their veg. To be fair, they probably are but those door cams are probably available in forn parts, way beyond Gladys at no 9's wildest dreams. I'm old enough to remember Badgers flying across the UK! Those are fucking huge Russian four engined plodders, wheezing across at high altitude in an attempt to cow us into ... some sort of submission. Invariably a flight of Phantoms or Starfighters would whizz on up. In the good old days we'd strap a decent chap onto a firework called a Lightning. I did see a pair do that job - spectacular and I'm sure the pilots probably ended up swallowing their teeth. Russia does steam punk in some bloody odd ways. Anyway, I would avoid worrying about our state watching you and worry about other states instead.

drekipus 5mo ago

To control the "non elite"

crimsoneer 5mo ago

It's worth recognising that unlike oyster cards, LFR in it's currently form doesn't store any data. It looks at faces, compares them to currently wanted offenders, and if it matches, alerts the officers operating that camera "live". Nothing is stored or processed beyond that

jaybrendansmith 5mo ago

It's like they watched 'The Running Man' and said 'How cool would that be...?'