Talking CCTV to Scold Offenders in UK

linumax writes "The most monitored nation of the world is getting an interesting new service. According to a BBC News story, "Talking" CCTV cameras that tell off people dropping litter or committing anti-social behaviour are to be extended to 20 areas across England.They are already used in Middlesbrough where people seen misbehaving can be told to stop via a loudspeaker, controlled by control centre staff."

23 years off?

[lecithin]

'Smith!' screamed the shrewish voice from the telescreen. '6079 Smith W.! Yes, you! Bend lower, please! You can do better than that. You're not trying. Lower, please! That's better, comrade. Now stand at ease, the whole squad, and watch me.'

A sudden hot sweat had broken out all over Winston's body. His face remained completely inscrutable. Never show dismay! Never show resentment! A single flicker of the eyes could give you away. He stood watching while the instructress raised her arms above her head and -- one could not say gracefully, but with remarkable neatness and efficiency -- bent over and tucked the first joint of her fingers under her toes.

Re:23 years off?

[Oxygen99]

The point is that these cameras don't represent a greater invasion of privacy than many other forms of CCTV. What people are missing is that they represent the time at which society has finally become so irresponsible, so frightened and so cowed that we're outsourcing our last duties to ourselves to the government. The issues that these things are intended to address, the littering, the graffiti, the vandalism, aren't criminal problems, they're societal problems to be policed and actioned by communities themselves, and devolving this power to government appointed behaviour watchdogs is frankly, terrifying. Once the people lose the power to police themselves, once their relationship to government mutates into "Stop that", "Put that down", "Pick that up" paternalism, they lose. I lose. You lose.

You talk about big brother? Talking CCTV cameras are more pointedly "big brother" than any other initiative proposed by this illiberal, dishonest government. After all, what does it mean? Big brother is not someone who stops you congregating in groups for legitimate protest, nor does he lock up foreigners without trial, sentence or judgement. No. This is Big Brother in all his attentive, caring, protective, advising, paternal, loving, Orwellian glory. Why vote anyone else citizen? Why go anywhere else citizen? We love you citizen. Now, stop slacking and get back to work. It's for your own good, you know.

Re:

[CmdrGravy]

The reason why people no longer feel able to tackle these kind of behaviours themselves is that they have a, justifiable, fear that they will find themselves being punished by the police if the action they take ends up with them giving the anti social person a clip around the ear or whatever.

Criminals, especially the nuisance level ones hanging around on street corners, selling drugs, burgling houses and mugging people have no real fear of the police. Ok so they may get caught and arrested but after that th

Re:

[khallow]

It is not an invasion of privacy to be watched in public.

In just the past ten years or so, there's been a huge increase in the ability of police to monitor you and your movements in public spaces. This results in an increase in power of government over your life. I don't think it's much of a stretch (perhaps another ten or twenty years) to have your every movement in public in most of the UK monitored and evaluated by some sort of AI. Perhaps even stored indefinitely. But before widespread monitoring, p

To the first person...

[Anonymous Coward]

who, while wearing bag over their head, publicly masturbates to one of the scolding cameras goes the contents of my Amazon Mechanical Turk account.

Where did the UK go wrong???

[CPE1704TKS]

1984 is/was taught in school so that kids would learn that things like that are bad, ie. a totalitarian system, government lies, etc. A big part of 1984 was how monitored people were, and one of the scariest moments for me was when the main character Smith had his own little secret corner of the room where none of the cameras could watch him, and he had his privacy albeit momentarily. The whole point was that this system was horrible!!!

Yet, somehow, this has morphed into a seemingly-large group of people believe that this is a GOOD thing. A doubleplus good thing. WTF went wrong??? Don't they realize they have become the EXACT thing that George Orwell was warning about??? What happened to the 60 years of knowledge that this book brought us about what life would be like living in a society like this?

Re:Where did the UK go wrong???

[QuantumG]

Maybe it's just inevitable.

To me the concept of people being free to do whatever they like so long as it doesn't prevent anyone else from doing the same is self evident. Unfortunately, I think the majority of people think the exact opposite: there is a list of things the majority of people believe we should not be allowed to do and there should be perfect enforcement of that list. The absolute tyranny of the majority of the minority is considered by most people to be the best form of government.

As such, the only arguments you'll see the mainstream make against perfect enforcement is the posibility of corruption or misuse.

Re:

[SerpentMage]

I think you have this inverted. It is not that the majority wants this, but a minority. Most governments are representational governments and thus authoritarian as the people who represent you are also authorities. When people become authorities they like to dictate terms because they think they know what you want.

In contrast Switzerland is a true tyranny of the majority and there are many many libertarians in this country that like their privacy. And privacy in Switzerland is part of the constitution (Arti

Re:

[edunbar93]

As such, the only arguments you'll see the mainstream make against perfect enforcement is the posibility of corruption or misuse.

Oh, you mean like how the camera monitors currently pay extra special attention to pretty girls, blacks, and muslims? Now the cameras can make them feel uncomfortable not just by following them, but can spew forth racial slurs and wolf-whistles.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, those people are known as authoratarians. Authoratarianism is a sickness. It's an arrested state of development that prevents the sufferer from
progressing to full adulthood where they understand their relationship to other human beings and their real responsibilities
in the world. In this state all reason is by appeal to authority, real or imaginary. It's based on unresolved fear of loss and vulnerability and leads to religious beliefs, superstition and sociopathy. It is possibly a conflicting basis at

Re:Where did the UK go wrong???

[rocketman768]

Hey...hey...I got one:

In America, you scorn the television.
In England, television scorns YOU!

Re:Where did the UK go wrong???

[edwardpickman]

It's always for our own good, or so they say. In the US Bush had a lot of Americans convinced giving up civil rights was for their own good. Oddly enough it wasn't americans bombing the Trade Center. It was simply an excuse to take rights away. Britian is doing it for the people's own good but at what price? If the goal is to end all crime then I guess we lojack everyone and place cameras in every home and business. Good news/bad news, they'll catch a whole lot of "criminals" but the bad news is we'll all be guilty. They say ignorance of the law is no excuse but there are tens of thousands of laws on the books and even the police don't know them all. It's impossible to not break laws you aren't even aware exist. Some things are perfectly legal here in one state but are felonies in others. There are even laws in some states governing sexual behavior among consenting adults. There are obscure laws on the books no one is aware of. The point shouldn't be to prosecute every human possible but to maintain order and protect individuals. The government is supposed to protect individuals from each other but if Constitutional law is ignored who will protect the people from the government?

Re:

[chris_eineke]

if Constitutional law is ignored who will protect the people from the government?

Eric S. Raymond: Open Source Superconfused and Gun Nut Inadequate.

Re:

[mike2R]

That sounds more like an argument for having a more sensible legal code, rather than against CCTV. I reckon you could use the exact same argument against having a police force.

Re:

[Vskye]

You know, 1984 this was required reading back in the late 70's when I was in high school. Matter of fact, a lot of the things I was taught are pretty much ignored now days. (such as the holocaust) Personally, I think the British people have put WAY to much trust in their government. And before I get bashed here, I didn't vote for the current government we have in the US, and totally disagree with most of "their" policies. I don't know ANYthing about UK government politics/policies btw.

Re:

[mike2R]

People see a distinction between having cameras in a public and private place?

Shoot me, I don't mind CCTV. In fact I frequently welcome it since it makes places considerably safer. I really don't see the problem with CCTV as it's currently implemented in the UK - it's used in public places and you can see the cameras; 1984 comparisons simply don't work.

Whatever slashdot thinks, CCTV is generally put up due to public pressure for it, not by some shadowy government group executing a long range plan to o

Re:

[mike2R]

The whole point is that you are sacrificing privacy bit-by-bit to the point where there is no privacy anymore. You can't pick your nose or fart because there are CCTVs everywhere, a luxury that used to be afforded to use if no person was around, but now, we have to look for cameras as well. If you use your credit or debit card to buy things or if you use a supermarket savings card, your purchases get tracked. You can't make offensive jokes amongst friends in emails because emails can get leaked or read from

Re:

[mike2R]

You can't govern without the consent of the governed - as eastern Europe discovered 15odd years ago.

You may be able to coerce that consent in a country with little democratic heritage or influence, but it simply isn't going to happen to any stable democracy unless the majority wants it at the time.

The only way I can see this happening in Britain, or any other western European country, is in response to a massive crisis - ie where the majority (temporally at least) want the dictator. This is certainly po

Re:Where did the UK go wrong???

[sfraggle]

I think the point is that use of CCTV cameras in public places isn't an invasion of privacy, because there is no privacy in a public place anyway. What if you got rid of all of the CCTV cameras and doubled the number of police patrolling the streets instead? How would it be different? Either way, the public are being monitored by an authority. When there is news about the number of police patrols being increased, everyone expresses support, but as soon as cameras start getting put up (effectively, making the process more efficient), people start freaking out and making 1984 comparisons.

Nobody that I've talked to on this issue has been able to answer this question yet, so I'll ask it plain and simple: How is monitoring of public places an invasion of privacy?

Re:Where did the UK go wrong???

[evilviper]

What if you got rid of all of the CCTV cameras and doubled the number of police patrolling the streets instead? How would it be different?

For one thing, the police wouldn't be standing around, filming you for 15 minutes, as you got beat/stabbed to death in the street...

For another, human beings don't remember every detail, of everything going on, every second of every day... So actual police aren't going to send out tickets for every trivial little infraction, like jaywalking in the middle of the night... Police aren't going to remember exactly who you were associating with, on every single day, for years.

There's an overwhelming difference between human and electronic surveillance, and I can't understand in the slightly why so many people play dumb, or even worse, actually believe it's remotely the same.

Re:Where did the UK go wrong???

[Alioth]

Pervasive CCTV means you can not only just passively monitor what's going on, but you can trivially and opportunistically track a person. It's not a great stretch given the pace of technology that in a couple of decades it will be automatically and pervasively track everyone who walks through a town pervasively covered by CCTV.

The difference between having a bunch of police doing the same is:
- police are single units and hard to network, and therefore some effort must be made to track a person by a number of individual officers. This means opportunistic tracking of everyone just because you can won't happen.
- police can react to violent crime and stop the crime from occurring, a CCTV camera cannot intevene in a fight to break it up

You can bet that as soon as it's possible to automatically track everyone (and the already installed all pervasive CCTV network makes this easy), they will do it. Incidentally, there is some level of privacy in a public place: privacy of the thoughts in my mind, privacy of where I'm going from and to (random people in public can't tell unless they stalk you), privacy of a conversation with a friend.

Re:Where did the UK go wrong???

[AmiMoJo]

The difference is twofold. First, if you have a police officer there, everyone can see him and knows he is there. He can directly act and is part of the situation, and there is no secrecy. Plus, he can probably hear what is being said or happening, which can radically alter the perception of a situation. Currently, lip-readers are sometimes called on in cases involving CCTV evidence, and there is a lot of concern that lip-reading is not anywhere near an exact science. Then again, neither is DNA or fingerprint evidence, but out system is quite poor at pointing out the limits of these technologies to jurys.

The other major difference is that this is a new level of monitoring. A policeman on the beat does not generally follow people or investigate them if they are not doing anything suspicious. CCTV is always recording, and with new technology is now following people all the time. Every car or tube journey in London can be followed easily. A person's movements on foot can easily be tracked. Yet, these are innocent people who in the past would not have been monitored.

If you examine a persons life in close enough detail, everyone looks like a criminal. Why should the government first assume that everyone is by default a ciminal and must be monitored, and why should I then be required to prove my innocence? CCTV is gathering evidence against everyone, all the time.

more like a call to arms

[Chief Wongoller]

Unfortunatly, there has grown up a culture of yobbish behaviour amoung a small but significant minority of manily young people who, for whatever reason, feel the need to express their anti-social anti-establisment feelings at every opportunity. There is a TV program in the UK called "police Camera action" which is a little like America's 'worlds wildest police videos' (or whatever). This has led to an increace of car theft and speeding, wreckess driving etc. also the UK courts award "Anti-social behaviour" (ASBO) notices to yobs who wander the streets drunk or stoned carring out vandalism and other petty thefts. This has led to an increase in crime and the offenders wear these ASBOs as "badges of honour". The types of people whom the talking cameras are targeted at will react with a similar negativity. These yobs will deliberatly act anti-socially so that they can promp a response. Why is all this so? Well in the UK the law gives insufficient protection to the state and the law-abiding masses and too much to the criminals. Crazy eh?

Re:

[Tim C]

Well in the UK the law gives insufficient protection to the state and the law-abiding masses and too much to the criminals. Crazy eh?

You do realise that our prisons are currently full, don't you? We're not locking as many people up as some people would like because there simply isn't space. As you say, a hardcore minority of people treat ASBOs as some kind of badge of honour; given that they can't be jailed and fining them is a waste of time (as they have no substantial assets or money to speak of) and we c

Looks like they missed one

[psaunders]

1. Pedestrian is spotted leaving can on bench
2. Talking Camera: "Please fetch your can."
3. Talking Camera: "The bin is behind the phone box."
4. Talking Camera: "Thank you for using the bin."

5. Pedestrian comes back at 2am and beats Talking Camera to death with cricket bat, or other clubbing instrument of choice.

How about this one

[SmallFurryCreature]

5. Pedestrian stops complaining about how filthy the beach is and why doesn't the goverment do anything about it.

Your argument sounds a lot like dog owners who complained about fines for letting their dogs crap on the sidewalk BUT also complained about crap on the sidewalk.

Is it really that hard to make sure your dog does NOT take a dump were everyone, including yourselve is walking? Is it that hard to drop your litter in a can?

You see, the problem for me, a middle aged white male, is that I see two choi

Re:

[1lus10n]

Or you could stop relying on the government. Pick up a history book, its literally chalk full of instances of the government/royalty/TPTB abusing things like this. What makes you think you can trust the people operating the cameras ? Whats to say that they dont steal your identity using the data they collect. Whats to say they dont start stalking people. You claim this wont affect you, but it will. The sad part is you wont realize it until its too late.

Re:

[ArsenneLupin]

5. Pedestrian stops complaining about how filthy the beach is and why doesn't the goverment do anything about it.

Do it like Germans: have a refundable tax on drink containers, which you get back when you bring back the empty bottle or tin to the shop. Result: no more empty beer bottles and tins along the German roads!

Re:

[ArsenneLupin]

That, or Americans are too rich and lazy to return the stuff :P

Oh, in Germany there are plenty of rich and lazy pricks too, that continue to litter.

However, with that return money ("Dosenpfand"), there are now enterprising kids that spend their afternoon to pick up litter along highways for a little pocket money.

Result: clean highways, happy kids

So when is the next step when..

[the_rajah]

the loudspeakers are augmented, for the public good, with servo controlled sedative dart guns?

Re:

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

Dart guns? Nah! You know those guns that shoot out a net? Now that would be so much cooler. And add a target laser. Oh, and make it a gattling gun type of gun. Just picture this:

Pedestrian litters.
Camera gives warning.
Pedestrian ignores camera.
-Sound of gattling gun reaching operation speed-
Camera give last warning.
Pedestrian starts to run away, fearing for his life.
Camera shoots net and captures pedestrian.

I can't wait to see the Youtube movies!

Monty Python anyone?

[KingKaneOfNod]

This just reads like a Monty Python sketch to me (sympathies to those who live in the UK and will have to live the joke) ...

An old man walks up to a street corner, looks around, sees no-one. Ever so slowly he reaches into his jacket and pulls out a cigarette and lighter. He puts the ciggie in his mouth, holds the light up to it, and:

CAMERA: Oi! You there! Do you really want to do that?
OLD MAN: What?! Who's there?
CAMERA: Look up, and a couple of metres to the right.
OLD MAN looks up and faces the camera.
CAMERA: You know smoking's bad for you right?
OLD MAN: I just wanted one, and I can't have them at home because the wife gives me grief.
CAMERA: Just one??! Just one you say??! You can't have just one, because once you start, you're hooked!
OLD MAN: I know that, I got hooked a long time ago.
CAMERA: Well you can get yourself unhooked right now. I won't have your type stinking up my town.
OLD MAN: I beg your pardon? I live here!
CAMERA: Not if I can help it! Now clear off before I send out the coppers!
OLD MAN makes a rude gesture at the camera.
CAMERA: Right! That's it! You've done it now!
OLD MAN: Done what? I haven't even got to have my smoke yet!
CAMERA: Don't play innocent with me, we've got the whole thing recorded.
Police siren blares.
OLD MAN: You bastard! All I wanted was a smoke and you call the bloody cops?!
Police arrive, old man runs off.
CAMERA: He went that way! After him!
--
Not funny? If only it were just a bad joke.

Re:

[soft_guy]

What I don't get is why anyone would obey a voice coming from a loudspeaker.

You ain't seen nothing yet

[patio11]

I work in a Japanese technology incubator, and one of our researchers has an image recognition program which can remove the human from this loop. The target market is convenience stores and the like, where the camera will watch everyone in the store and, if your movements look "shifty" (via comparison with a couple thousand tapes of people who were later determined to have shoplifted), the shelf will talk to you! Its like a loss-prevention Clippy! "Hello, it looks like you are trying to put that packet o

demo man

[wolfgang_spangler]

John Spartan, you are fined 10 credits for littering...

Why do people in Britain put up with this?

[ip_freely_2000]

For once, I'd like to see news of a protest in Britain about all those friggin cameras.

Re:

[chris_eineke]

Are you silly? Do you want to end up on tape that recorded how you protest... -- oh.

Because they're getting desperate?

[Kadin2048]

From what I can tell, of the few people from Britain that I regularly talk to, is that they really don't care.

There is sort of an epidemic -- perceived or actual, I don't know, and it hardly matters -- of obnoxious, petty crime, mostly committed by youths, in many British cities. There's the whole "happy slapping" thing, but that's just really the tip of the iceberg, it's just a lot of vandalism, shoplifting, street crime, etc. It's the kind of thing that just really gets to people, because it directly degrades the quality of life when you walk around.

In some ways, I think it sort of mirrors feelings that people in the U.S. had back around 10-15 years ago, at the height of the violent crime wave in the inner cities, except in Britain it doesn't seem to really be violent crime. (In fact it seems to be the kind of shit that would probably get you shot by one of the more serious criminals here in America -- maybe we have some sort of natural selection in the ghettos here that keeps this stuff to a minimum? Or maybe everyone with the means to in the U.S. abandoned the inner cities so long ago that we just don't notice.)

But at any rate, the people who have influence -- mostly white, middle income and up -- aren't too bothered, because they're looking rather desperately for any way to knock the "yobs," "chavs," and other varieties of scum in line. There's a sort of (and again, this is just based on the people I've talked with) "well, nothing else has worked, so what the hell" attitude.

To be honest I can't really blame them. Here in the U.S., there were a lot of Generally Bad Ideas being tossed around back in the 90s before the crime wave crested and began to recede (and I don't think even now there's a clear consensus on why that happened -- some people, the authors of Freakonomics in particular, argue that it was actually the echo of Roe v. Wade from a generation earlier reducing the number of potential criminals; feel free to posit your own theory). If the tide hadn't turned when it did, we'd probably be looking at things like this all over the place right now.

Clarification

[Kadin2048]

A clarification on one sentence:

But at any rate, the people who have influence -- mostly white, middle income and up -- aren't too bothered by the cameras and other "innovative" policing techniques...

The way I had it written, made it ambiguous as to whether I was saying that people with influence weren't bothered by the crime or the cameras. I meant the cameras.

The people I know, who are all over-30, middle- or upper-middle-class whites with families, seem a whole lot more annoyed by the speed cameras (whic

Re:

[mike2R]

You pretty much nail it I think. CCTV is simply not seen in the 1984esq light of the typical slashdot story, and "antisocial behavior" (which is a somewhat totalitarian name for it I agree) is/is perceived as a major problem.

Maybe it's a difference between an armed and unarmed society - a group of 15 year olds is going to think twice about harresing someone who might possibly be carrying a gun.

Re:Because they're getting desperate?

[badfish99]

There is sort of an epidemic -- perceived or actual, I don't know, and it hardly matters -- of obnoxious, petty crime

So, after installing all those cameras, there is an epidemic of exactly the sort of crime that they are supposed to prevent? And the solution is to install more, and more expensive, cameras? It's working well, isn't it?

It certainly matters whether the epidemic is perceived or actual: no amount of law enforcement is going to reduce crime if the crime is not "actual", but just in the minds of the right-wing press.

Re:

[Danny Rathjens]

in the 90s before the crime wave crested and began to recede (and I don't think even now there's a clear consensus on why that happened -- some people, the authors of Freakonomics in particular, argue that it was actually the echo of Roe v. Wade from a generation earlier reducing the number of potential criminals; feel free to posit your own theory).

DeoxyriboNucleic Acid profiling: "DNA profiling was developed in 1984 by British geneticist Sir Alec Jeffreys,[107] and first used in forensic science to convi

Re:

[JohnFluxx]

It's not just us whiteys. The minorities I've talked to really dislike the current youth behaviour and also pretty much want any way to stop it.

Re:

[arkhan_jg]

Mainly because the people who oppose have given up. 2 million people marched in peaceful protest against British involvement in the Iraq war in London alone; The US equivalent in population size would be 10 million on the streets of Washington. It had absolutely zero effect.

Near 2 million people signed a petition on the governments own website opposing per-mile road charging plans (likely enforced by satellite trackers) and the government's response was basically 'you don't understand, we have to do this, s

The root of the problem...

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the biggest issues I have:
    Why are there so many people who don't know how to behave on their own? What are mothers teaching these days?

Adording Parents: Everything is their fault

[BillGatesLoveChild]

I just had a story submission that answered this very question: "Narcissist Technology: Did Mamma Lie?"

Unfortunately it dribbled out of the Slashhot Firehose.
Fortunately you can still read about it elsewhere:

http://www.pbs.org/teachers/learning.now/2007/03/h as_myspace_contributed_to_gen_1.html [pbs.org]
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-esteem27fe b27,0,225486,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines [latimes.com]
http://www.statenews.com/op_article.phtml?pk=40058 [statenews.com]

screaming cameras

[andy314159pi]

One of the things that it screams at people is
"How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?"

Oh Gawd Blimey, Guvnor!

[BillGatesLoveChild]

"CCTV cameras that tell off people dropping litter or committing anti-social behaviour are to be extended to 20 areas across England."

Will one of those be Buckingham Palace? "Oooi! Prince Harry! Put out that fatty!"
Follow a recent royal tradition "Pardon Guvnor! That lady most certainly is not your wife!"
Or "Horses *must* be housed in the stable! Oh sorry, 'Mam"

Realistically: One of the guards will leave the loudspeaker on:
"Cor Blimey! Check out the norks on that bird. Would love to get me some of that crum

Lasers

[Detritus]

They need to add a laser to the camera mount. Something with enough power to inflict a minor burn. Dump your trash on the street? ZAP!

Middlesborough? They have these in Cheshire!

[Omicron32]

I'm from Warrington, in Cheshire, and they have these in place already. People are starting to complain about them though.

The only one I've seen so far (at least, the only place I've seen it 'triggered') is in the outdoor centre bit of our local shopping center, where there is a pub and some construction work going on. A few friends and I came out of the pub a bit drunk and saw some "wet floor" type cones lying around... anyway, so yeah, we're messing with these cones in a non-destructive way (just putting them on our heads - hey, look, we were drunk, stfu) and then this booming yet completely intelligible voice starts talking to us telling us to put the cones down!

Over Christmas they had a fake ice rink there and they kept telling people to get off it at night.

We're not sure where the speaker itself is, but pretty much every place in town is covered by cameras. I'm pretty sure that's not the only place they cover with these things. Having read 1984, it's extremely disturbing.

 

There's a beam in your eye.

[Carniphage]

Being beaten up at night is not a right that I want preserving. Cameras have cut crime. and you know, I like my safe-feeling. I live in the UK but my only experience of mugging was Los Angeles and Paris. The British would get upset if someone tried to take away important rights. If some religion-inspired leader told us that we cannot buy alcohol until the age of 21. We'd say "What is this? Some kind of Police state?".

That's nonsense

[cheros]

Walking alone at night in Singapore or Zurich feels a truckload safer than London. In both those places you can see kids as young as 8 travel independently (without parents) to their friends and school and walk around in freedom - I wouldn't recommend that in London either.

Yet both those nations are not so nannied and camera infested as the UK - explain?

the only difference I can see straight away is that the police in those places is (a) very available and (b) doesn't take any BS. Oh, and public transport

Well bang goes my hobby...

[ettlz]

...of standing with my back to CCTV cameras, slightly bent over with my legs should-width apart, shaking about a bit while holding a bottle of water upside-down at waist height with both hands.

OMFG Middlesbrough

[Linker3000]

Went there once on a 6 month contract...

Likely message from the cameras...

"Hey, you...What you doing climbing the camera pole..yes you in the football shirt (half of Middlesbrough turns around thinking it's them)..put down those bolt cutters...this is police property and...hey..what's that sound? Are you cutting my brackets...I'm warning you, there's a car on its way...stop that right now...don't you know these cameras are very hard to resell...we have the serial number&*£(...."

Law of unintended consequences

[Saunalainen]

What worries me isn't so much the invasion of privacy by CCTV, or being patronised by being told to pick up litter, but rather that this technology threatens to render CCTV ineffective.

CCTV is pervasive in British cities, but there are too many cameras and too few operatives for every camera to be monitored all the time. Criminals are deterred by the uncertainty of whether they are being watched. However, once CCTV becomes reactive, the absence of a verbal warning could be taken as confirmation that you are not being watched.

Suppose you're a would-be mugger in the centre of Midlesborough. You drop some litter and mess about with traffic cones, and if there's no verbal warning then you know there's a good chance that you're invisible to surveillance for the time being. Knowing you're relatively safe from being caught, you can now select your victim with impunity.

Please hold still while the police come for you

[Catbeller]

How many cameras are surrounding the estates of the wealthy who actually steal real money? I'd imagine if any exist, they point out at the hoi polloi, never in at the lives of the powerful, who never are monitored without their consent.

Re:Ready for the Daily Jerks?

[Seumas]

All you'd have to do in America to make this tolerable is connect it to preventing terrorists, child molesters or promoting baby jebus.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

All you have to do in Slashdot to make a flamebait post tolerable is bash the right people, especially that last one.

Re:Ready for the Daily Jerks?

[Seumas]

Wow. You frighten me.

It's one thing to use "hey, it's in public" as an excuse for a lot of things, but it's another thing entirely to use it to justify eavesdropping from a remote location, videotaping people and even remotely telling them how to behave and not to be anti-social.

You might as well justify people getting upskirt material in public. What's the difference? How is it different if you use high tech equipment to listen in on people from eighty feet away and recording everything they do in public versus some crazy perv with mirrors on his shoes and a small video camera?

Why not stick video camers and audio capturing devices and loudspeakers on every lightpole and aim them directly into everyone's homes. After all, the cameras are in public places and if Joe Public could potentially see and listen to something from the road, what's the big deal about a video camera with 14x optical zoom and high quality devices that pick up audio from far away doing the same thing?

I for one love the idea of being monitored, watched and told how to behave by some minimum wage monkey in a remote location every second I am outside of my home. Yay!

Re:Ready for the Daily Jerks?

[rjshields]

The cameras are in town/city centres, not pointing at peoples' homes. I don't know if you've been to the UK, but there's a culture where people get out of their tiny minds on alcohol and drugs and then beat the crap out of each other and innocent passers by. The cameras help to catch and prosecute the idiots engaged in this kind of behaviour. I'm not saying the implications aren't scary, but there are valid reasons for the cameras.

Re:

[trianglman]

So when TPTB decide that domestic violence needs to be more strongly protected against, pointing the cameras at people's houses will be fine? While the GP did do some straw man with his upskirting, he does have a valid point. You can't make excuses like this for further wrong behavior. If drunken brawls are a problem, put more police on the streets near these bars. Don't put up cameras that will threaten you with arrest because you dropped some trash.

Re:

[aplusjimages]

Kind of like how the cameras in convenience stores have stopped criminals from robbing them? Crime will always be there. The question is do you want to give the government, whether it be state or federal, this much more power. If it's not stopping crime, then what's the point?

Just look a bit further

[dallaylaen]

The scary thing is not having cameras in public places. The scary thing is people getting used to cameras and to a Voice From Above telling them what to do.

In 2015, someone will say: well, but what about the crimes that are committed at homes by cruel parents? What about terrorists making their bombs? Let's have homes monitored!

There will be an outrage. People will gather in the streets, screaming "Give our rights back". The cameras in those streets will tell them in a firm voice, "Stop yelling and go away". People will stop yelling and go away. So will their freedom.

Re:Just look a bit further

[CmdrGravy]

This is assuming that people will actually listen to some loudspeaker telling them what to do, anecdotal evidence from the areas where the scheme is in place already seems to suggest this might not be the case.

Various people have been instructed by the voices to not cross the road where they were about to cross it but to walk up to the crossing and cross it there but instead of humbly complying they ignored the voice and crossed anyway. One person says he now crosses at this place every day just to hear the voice shouting at him. These were just innocent people who weren't actually doing anything wrong, they are all perfectly capable of judging for themselves where to cross the road and they don't need some idiot in a control room telling them how to do it.

Law abiding people are the most likely sorts of people to comply with the cameras demands and the people they really want to tackle, e.g. thugs, muggers, car jackers, drunk teenagers are very quickly going to realise that the voice can shout at them all night but with 19 out every 20 British Policemen and Women tied up in the police station reading up on the latest guidelines for dealing sensitively with ethnic minorities no police are ever going to turn up to actually stop them doing whatever it is they were doing.

Re:Just look a bit further

[Bloke down the pub]

It's just a pilot scheme. Phase 2 will see the loudspeakers supplemented by machine guns.

Re:

[aplusjimages]

I wonder what the screening process is like to be the person monitoring others. I imagine the monitors have fun with it sometimes. "Sir, stop picking your nose." "Lady, stop being so fat." Good times to be had in the big brother world.

Re:

[TractorBarry]

Well said that man.

If I lived where a voice on high told me what to do I would quickly start a Monty Python style dialogue with the "Controller"

Voice: "Don't cross there"
Me (falling to knees): "Blessed be ! A miracle ! God is speaking to me !"
Voice: "Stop that now, get up and go the crossing"
Me (not moving): "And how shall I go to the crossing oh Lord ?"
Voice: "Stop that now... We'll call the poilce"
Me (now prostrate): "Oh vengeful Lord, smite me not with your mighty polices"
etc. etc.

This sort of thing wou

Re:Just look a bit further

[rjshields]

In 2015, someone will say: well, but what about the crimes that are committed at homes by cruel parents? What about terrorists making their bombs? Let's have homes monitored!

Bullshit. It's one thing to have cameras in then centre of towns and cities, it's another to have them monitoring your homes. I accept the cameras in the town centre, it makes me feeler safer against the drunk, aggressive chavs. It's a similar story with other people I speak to. However, if there was a camera pointing at my house I'd disable the thing by any means necessary.

Re:

[Alioth]

Oh, yeah - it makes you feel safer - but it doesn't actually make you one bit safer. How does a camera intervene to stop you being mugged? It can't. All it can do (if the operator happens to be watching) is let someone know that an ambulance should be dispatched (and arrive in about 20 minutes) to scrape up your bleeding battered body off the pavement. The chavs who did this to you evaded identification by the camera by the simple technological measure of a hood and a long billed baseball cap.

Having actual

Re:Ready for the Daily Jerks?

[McFadden]

The blithe lack of concern by the British Public continually amazes me...

Actually, some of us are disgusted to the point where we've gone to live abroad because we can't stand the damn place any more. Out of my closest circle of friends whom you could count on two hands, 5 have now relocated (to California, New York, Australia(2) & New Zealand) at the last count. My younger sister is about to go to Switzerland, my parents live for 10 months of the year in Spain and I'm in Japan.

Anyone with any sense got out ages ago.

Re:

[McFadden]

leaving england for amerika is like going to wales?

I know what you mean. Bangor and San Jose are like two peas in a pod! (sorry couldn't resist)

Re:

[dwater]

not really. the story here is that they're expanding to other places now....

Re:

[bersl2]

OK, but neither the title nor the summary says this.

Re:Dupe

[dwater]

yeah - not unusual for /.. ...but the linked story is from the bbc who tend to put some thought into what they put on their site (note the date 'Wednesday, 4 April 2007, 13:08 GMT 14:08 UK ') - just that fact alone should indicate it is actually a *new* news story and not an old one.

Re:Dupe

[QuantumG]

That's fantastic. Rehashed old news on another site gets the exact same writeup on Slashdot because the person who submitted the story doesn't read Slashdot and then it gets through the queue because the "editors" don't read Slashdot either.

Re:Dupe

[QuantumG]

No.. what you should be afraid of is when people comply with the orders issued from these cameras instead of throwing rocks at them.

Re:

[flyingsquid]

We should get the cameras to yell at Slashdot editors if they try to post a dupe...

Re:

[maxume]

Whatever. The actual day to day situation is a lot more important than the legal fiction that is used to support it(Or do you think that the U.S. Constitution has Harry Potter magic power and will protect us against those that would defile it?).

Re:What a lot of Americans don't realize..

[soft_guy]

Or do you think that the U.S. Constitution has Harry Potter magic power

That is precisely why the ACLU exists.

Re:

[rubycodez]

oh, so you think the ACLU has magic Harry Potter power.

Re:What a lot of Americans don't realize..

[QuantumG]

Heh. As an Australian I was particularly surprised to discover that I can be arrested for "brawling" in public in the UK even if the person I'm fighting has given me his consent. In Australia, the law is clear, if someone hits you, you can hit them back or you can have them arrested for assault, but not both. If someone invites you to hit them, "go on then, hit me!", you are free to do so. I believe this is the case in the US too. I don't really know.

What's more strange, I found, was that I never got into a fight in all my adult life until I went to the UK. There I got into a bunch of them. One caused by annoying people who wouldn't turn down their music while I was trying to sleep. (I politely asked them to turn down their music, one of them hit me). One caused by men at McDonalds rudely describing a female patron. (I politely asked them to watch their language, one of them hit me). One which I started after listening to a white guy call a guy I knew "niger" a bunch of times. My friend didn't want to get in trouble with the nearby security people.. but where I come from, that kind of talk earns you a broken nose.

Of course, a bunch of you reading this probably think this is terribly uncouth and that I am clearly an anti-social person. Call me Quentin Tarantino if you like, but I think there's a place for violence in our society.. it's a regulating force which every person has the power to exercise. Just look at how impolite some forums without violence can be.

Re:

[martinX]

I reckon you could be charged with affray.
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/ ca190082/s93c.html [austlii.edu.au]

Re:

[c_forq]

IANAL, but in the US you in pretty much all cases you are capable of responding with equal force (if I person punches you, you can punch them, however you can't nail them in the face with a hammer). In cases where there is a reasonable threat to your life you can respond with greater force, even to the point of maiming or death. What a reasonable threat is varies state to state, as I understand it. I know in some places they have upheld use of firearms against trespassers, and I've also heard in Texas fi

Re:

[QuantumG]

Yeah yeah. That's all well and good, but if you start biffing on in public can the police drag you away in chains?

Re:

[finity]

Way to be a man and have some balls.
That is, assuming you are a man. If not, just consider that a compliment.

Re:

[MichaelSmith]

Heh. As an Australian I was particularly surprised to discover that I can be arrested for "brawling" in public in the UK even if the person I'm fighting has given me his consent.

If I am sitting in the row in front of you at the MCG and you start a consensual brawl with the guy next to you I would want you both to be arrested.

Re:

[QuantumG]

We'll be asked to leave the establishment and if we fail to do so then we'll be arrested, yes. But in a public place, we're free to engage in whatever social activity we find appropriate to resolve our differences, so long as we're not endangering others. But hey, don't feel bad, you're opinion in the norm. You don't like X, you don't think people should be permitted to do X.

Re:

[MichaelSmith]

You don't like X, you don't think people should be permitted to do X.

You can do X if it is not a direct threat to me.

Re:

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

One which I started after listening to a white guy call a guy I knew "niger" a bunch of times. My friend didn't want to get in trouble with the nearby security people.. but where I come from, that kind of talk earns you a broken nose.

Does that apply to calling someone "Chad" or "Cameroon" too?

Re:

[JohnFluxx]

Way to go. People here (I'm English) are too afraid to say anything to the youths. That's why they feel they can get away with it.

Re:What a lot of Americans don't realize..

[Gordonjcp]

That is entirely untrue. What a lot of Americans fail to realise is that the Queen has *no* power of any kind.

Re:

[Tim C]

Yup, that's exactly what it says in my passport - "This person is the property of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth".

Oh wait, no it doesn't, it calls me a "British Citizen".

Your friend could be brought up on charges for damaging the property of the crown.

Actually it would be assault, but if you refused to press charges I really can't see it making it to court - the police are far too busy to piss about with things like that.

(I know slashdot is getting worse all the time, but this is "Insightful"? Please.)

Re:What a lot of Americans don't realize..

[arkhan_jg]

That's absolute bollocks. Magna Carta in 1215 placed major limits on the crown, and effectively established the rights of men to self-determination (well, the land-owning ones anyway). Don't forget, we had a civil war a few hundred years later that killed off the power of the crown for good.

You also forget the European constitution on human rights is now UK law; it is effectively a bill of rights. The UK might have a few priorities in law different, such as a few tighter limits on free speech such as libel and hate speech, but we have broadly the same rights as US citizens. We're certainly not all chattels (or slaves) of the Crown!

Out of interest, how has the vaunted US system protected habeas corpus? How much good is freedom of the press when all the presses are owned by a few barons in league with the government? A piece of paper is only as powerful as the will of the people to hold their government accountable to it.

Re:

[arkhan_jg]

Oops that should be European Convention of Human Rights; the implementation into UK law, the Human Rights Act, is here [opsi.gov.uk]. The relevant part would be articles 4 and 5. Article 3, prohibition of torture and inhumane treatment is also a good one...

Re:

[SQL Error]

This has to be the most stupid and ill-informed comment I've read on /. for a LONG time.

You can't have been reading much lately. Yes, it's complete nonsense, but that accounts for a pretty high percentage of posts even when you're browsing at +5.

Re:

[Harmonious Botch]

1. get rid of the crown. It's long over due. Join the post-medieval world.
2. GET A CONSTITUTION.
3. TAKE DOWN THE CAMERAS

While I agree with parent on the first two, I suggest leaving the cameras up, but make them netcams with no passwords so that anybody can see what is happening, not just the government. And get rid of the speakers.

Do like the French: Take the shotgun approach

[ArsenneLupin]

Over the last couple of years, French police have put up lots of speed cams ("radars fixes") on the motorways. Regularly, these have their glass shattered by a well aimed shotgun blast.

Way to go!

Re:

[PeterBrett]

1. get rid of the crown. It's long over due. Join the post-medieval world.
2. GET A CONSTITUTION.

Because that's done so well for you in the USA. Oh wait, the USA is only the second most monitored country in the world.

Really: what the hell does the system of government have to do with the existence of fascist CCTV cameras? The scum rises to the top in every system of government I'm aware of, whether democratic or otherwise.

Re:People of the UK: RISE UP!!!

[Gordonjcp]

1. get rid of the crown. It's long over due. Join the post-medieval world.

1. Get rid of the death penalty. It's long overdue. Join the post-medieval world.

2. GET A CONSTITUTION.

2. Get a constitution, and stick by it. Better yet, get something like the Magna Carta, which the US has no equivalent for but the UK has had for three times as ong as the US has existed

3. TAKE DOWN THE CAMERAS.

3. Get rid of the mandatory phone-tapping in the US. You might not know this, but every single call you make is monitored. While you're at it, you might want to get rid of the semi-trained armed thugs playing at policemen, too.

Re:

[JohnFluxx]

Yeah, I'm afraid that's true, and I can see why.

A couple of months ago I was with my wife and this obnoxious 16 year old girl had her music on full playing the same song over and over for several hours on the bus. I went up to her and told her to cut that out, which of course she didn't.

I got off the bus and she did as well and punched me from behind. I punched her straight back and made her head bleed. Then some group of her friends came out and tried to give me a beating. I got away, but my wife is no