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The study that made us think the UK was the most surveilled country was a 2006 report, which reported about 4 million cameras in the UK. This report was publish

by bport 13y ago

The study that made us think the UK was the most surveilled country was a 2006 report, which reported about 4 million cameras in the UK. This report was published by the UK government's /own/ information comissioner as a warning of what we could be walking into. A more recent study a couple of years ago put the number closer to 2 million, about 90% of which are privately owned. A large number of privately owned, non-centralised security cameras are not a threat to me in any way. If the government started networking private security for monitoring by the government, /that/ would be the action that would get people (and private companies) up in arms. Other recent government aggression, such as suspicionless stop and searches, extended detention for terrorism offences etc. were successfully challenged in the European court of humans rights within a few years. I've seen a pattern of worrying things slipping passed a sleepwalking public, then reverted later when it comes to light. Apart from all that, this headline in particular is really inaccurate. There was no quote as strong as the subject, but the closest thing is that the PM said they were going to 'block sites' related to extremeism. This isn't a 'filter', which implies it's something automated that affects all internet activity. The internet surveillance under RIPA /is/ genuinely frightening, but that isn't unique to the UK.

jon-wood 13y ago
> the PM said they were going to 'block sites' related to extremeism. This isn't a 'filter', which implies it's something automated that affects all internet activity. That sounds very much like the the Internet Watch Foundation's filter list, which was originally implemented to block access to child abuse. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanfeed_(content_blocking_system) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanfeed_(content_blocking_sys...) There has been at least one case of that list accidentally blocking access to Wikipedia after an over-zealous block took out the entire domain instead of a single page, and there's no reason to believe that it couldn't be used to block far more content if the political will were there.
mortov 13y ago
You mean privately controlled, like this ? http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/18/cctv_shoplifters/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/18/cctv_shoplifters/ Hey, they just need to suspect you and you're all over their web site. No need for any actual proof or any inconvenience stuff like an actual conviction. Many UK retailers already share CCTV between each other and many operate central monitoring hubs for facial recognition of 'undesirables' - people convicted of shoplifting or people the police have asked them to look for. Here, from guess where, parliament's site, is a paper explaining lots of the UK technology in use in 2002 : http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/POST-PN-175.pdf http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/POST-PN-175.pdf Have a look at the part about Newham in London using automatic facial recognition. Are you serious about not being worried ?

by bport 13y ago

jon-wood 13y ago

> the PM said they were going to 'block sites' related to extremeism. This isn't a 'filter', which implies it's something automated that affects all internet activity. That sounds very much like the the Internet Watch Foundation's filter list, which was originally implemented to block access to child abuse. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanfeed_(content_blocking_system) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanfeed_(content_blocking_sys...) There has been at least one case of that list accidentally blocking access to Wikipedia after an over-zealous block took out the entire domain instead of a single page, and there's no reason to believe that it couldn't be used to block far more content if the political will were there.

mortov 13y ago

You mean privately controlled, like this ? http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/18/cctv_shoplifters/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/18/cctv_shoplifters/ Hey, they just need to suspect you and you're all over their web site. No need for any actual proof or any inconvenience stuff like an actual conviction. Many UK retailers already share CCTV between each other and many operate central monitoring hubs for facial recognition of 'undesirables' - people convicted of shoplifting or people the police have asked them to look for. Here, from guess where, parliament's site, is a paper explaining lots of the UK technology in use in 2002 : http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/POST-PN-175.pdf http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/POST-PN-175.pdf Have a look at the part about Newham in London using automatic facial recognition. Are you serious about not being worried ?