Britain: Police State?

[OneWingedBird]

i wonder if it factors in people carrying chair legs as high risk

 

[Pete Younger]

i wonder if it factors in people carrying chair legs as high risk

Probably not but you might have a problem with a cucumber

 

[re_mute]

We are about to take the war against terror to a new level

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... -terrorism


"Over recent years, we have set up a national security committee involving the heads of agencies and the armed forces, and a national security forum bringing in the best outside experts. We have built up not only our national policing capability but also counterterrorist police in the regions.

But today, not only the police and security and intelligence officers, and our armed forces, but also the emergency services, local councils, businesses, and community groups are involved in state-of-the-art civil contingency planning.

Tens of thousands of men and women throughout Britain - from security guards to store managers - have now been trained and equipped to deal with an incident and know what to watch for as people go about their daily business in crowded places such as stations, airports, shopping centres and sports grounds.

This is not just about training and equipping professionals, however. I believe that the better we inform the public, the more vigilant the public will be. And there is a duty on all of us - government, parliament, and civic society - to stand up to people who advocate violence and preach hate, to challenge their narrow and intolerant ideology - in public meetings, in universities, in schools and online."

 

[Quake42]

Report today highlighting an all-too-believable outcome from the "Database State":

Stephen: the Nottinghamshire victim of the database state

Datebase State report by Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust highlights case of an ordinary citizen
Comments (9)

3.45pm update: Since the publication of this blogpost, the report's authors have responded to a request for clarification, pointing out that the case study below is, in fact, hypothetical.

_________________________________________________________

A quarter of all the largest public sector database projects are fundamentally flawed and clearly breach European data protection and rights laws, a new report finds today, offering astonishing insights into the kind of information being held and the possible implications for the people involved.

Database State, claimed to be most comprehensive analysis of Britain's information hoarding, was commissioned in the wake of HM Revenue & Customs losing two disks containing the entire child benefit database in October 2007.

David Shutt, the chair of the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, writes in the foreword:

"The millions of people affected by this data loss, who may have thought they had nothing to hide, were shown that they do have much to fear from the failures of the database state."

Eleven of 46 databases surveyed should be scrapped or significantly redesigned, the authors find.

They also call for sensitive data to be kept on local rather than national systems, and for personal information to be shared only with the subject's consent in most situations.

There's a hypothetical case study of a Nottingham teenager, which illustrates how police and employers can come to judge individuals according to what is recorded about their contact with various public services:

"Stephen is fourteen and lives with his mum in Nottingham. He is listed on all the big databases that every youngster is on nowadays: ContactPoint gives links to all the public services he has used; the NHS Care Record Service has his medical records; the National Pupil Database has his school attendance, disciplinary history and test results; he is on the Child Benefits Database, and also on the National Identity Register since he applied for a passport; the Government Gateway has a record of all his online interactions with public services; and the ITSO smartcard he uses for local bus services and discount rail fares has been tracking him ever since his mum refilled it with her bank card. His mother frets about all this – when she was a teenager in the 1980s, things like medical and school records were all kept on paper. And although the family has always kept its phone number ex-directory and always ticks the 'no information' box, they get ever more junk mail. More and more of it is for Stephen.

"Like millions of children, he is on a few more databases besides. After an operation to remove a bone tumour, he needed an orthopaedic brace for two years, which brought him into the social care system. As his teachers could see from ContactPoint that he was known to social workers, they expected less of him, and he started doing less well at school. The social care system also led to his being scanned for Onset, a Home Office system that tries to predict which children will become offenders. The Police National Database told Onset that Stephen's father – who left home when he was two and whom he does not remember – had spent six months in prison for fraud, so the computer decided that Stephen was likely to offend.

"When he was with some other youths who got in a fight, the police treated him as a suspect rather than a witness, and he got cautioned for affray. Ten years later, after he thought he had put all this behind him and completed an MSc in vehicle testing technology, Stephen finds that the government's new Extended Background Screening (EBS) programme picked up his youthful indiscretion and he cannot get the job he had hoped for at the Department of Transport. He tries to get jobs in the private sector, but the companies almost all find excuses to demand EBS checks. Two did not, but one of them picked up the fact that he had been treated for cancer; all cancer data is passed to cancer registries whether the patient likes it or not, and made available to all sorts of people and firms for research. Given the decline in the NHS since computerisation, most decent employers offer generous private health insurance – so they are not too keen to hire people who have had serious illnesses."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog ... government

 

[ramonmercado]

Conor Gearty, writing in this weeks New Statesman suggests that things aren't so bad after all. Caveat: this weeks NS has Alistair Campbell as guest editor.

A convention of cant
Conor Gearty

www.newstatesman.com/law-and-reform/200 ... ts-freedom

Published 19 March 2009

Too many of today’s self-styled defenders of liberty are covert right-wingers, determined only to protect the rich and the privileged

I first wrote that Britain was in danger of becoming a police state in the New Statesman, in June 1986. The occasion was the Public Order Bill that was then before parliament. Our civil liberties were being “horribly squeezed”, as I saw it, by an increase in police power that was producing a “distressing drift into discretionary law”. I ended by declaring that a “police state, even a benevolent one, is not a free society for long”. I wish now I had not used that phrase: it was too shrill for the circumstances it sought to describe, drawing too quick a conclusion from too flimsy a factual base. Yet if we are to believe many of the enthusiastic champions of freedom at the recent Convention on Modern Liberty we are still – 23 years later – on our way to becoming a police state or a “surveillance society” or whatever the latest colourful label is to describe the decline of freedom in Britain. The point is as overstated today as it was in 1986.

First it reveals a serious lack of historical perspective. When was this golden age from which we measure the decline? Subsequent work on this point has convinced me that it has never existed; that if anything in recent years the power of the police and of the state generally has been regulated by statute in ways that simply did not exist in years gone by. Until quite recently the police did whatever they wanted and the common law (for which read reactionary judges) upheld them in court on the very rare occasions that they happened to be challenged. Before that the military turned up, read the riot act and either shot you or threw you out of the country.

Odd though it might seem to say, the existence of laws on state power may point to a move away from rather than in the direction of a police state. Two examples of this are the rules regulating the interception of communication, brought in to replace an entirely unaccountable executive scheme which had operated for years in total secrecy; and a recent House of Lords decision on public protest which overruled police use of the common law on the basis that the police should now work within the statutory framework that parliament had enacted for them. This is progress.

Second, there is the naked selectivity of much of the current discussion on liberty. Proponents of the “end of freedom” hypothesis seem to ignore all the evidence pointing the other way. But there is a very great deal of this indeed, at least since 1997: devolution legislation; the Freedom of Information Act; the Data Protection Act; and (above all) the Human Rights Act, together with the many judgments under that act which have been accepted by the executive even where these have not been to its taste (the “Belmarsh” detention case for example).

A similar kind of mistake is made with regard to the common law, often treated by proponents of liberty as a beautiful work of freedom which has been irreparably damaged by the intrusions of a big brother state. But without legislation it would still be OK to engage in racial discrimination, to deny women the full rights of personhood and to prioritise individual property rights to the exclusion of other public interests. The new legal action available for breach of privacy would not exist without the Human Rights Act. There have been many occasions when progressives have needed the state to save society from the common law.

The third problem, linked to this, is one of proportionality. For advocates of the end of freedom thesis, it often seems that any evidence of state intrusion will do in support of their case. This makes it impossible for them to discuss the rights and wrongs of particular interferences: all is always bad in all possible cases. The reality, however, is that some governmental intrusions are defensible and some are not. CCTV cameras save lives and secure convictions of bad people that might otherwise not be achieved. DNA evidence has the potential to transform the process of crime detection in this country. The interception of communications can play a vital part in preventing serious wrongdoing. Of course, these powers can be abused and so must be controlled in a way which balances their importance with the risk that they impact on personal freedom too severely. It is not enough to rule out all discussion of this new technology as inevitably unacceptable, yet this is what many of today’s self-styled defenders of liberty seem to do. And doing this in such an indiscriminate manner means that we lack the verbal tools to critique truly unacceptable exercises of state power on the occasions that these arise – if everything is always condemned, nothing truly is.

The idea that the state is an unwarranted assault on individual freedom is not a progressive one. This kind of libertarianism works to protect privilege by cloaking the advantages of the rich in the garb of personal autonomy, individual freedom and the “human right” to privacy. It is not at all surprising that the Convention on Modern Liberty is attracting strong support from those on the right of politics, politicians who hanker after a golden age of rights for the rich and responsibilities for everyone else. But the left, or at least those parts of it that believe in the progressive power of the state, need to be more careful about defining exactly where they stand when they join in this chorus of dissent.

Conor Gearty is a professor of law at the London School of Economics

 

[Analogue Boy]

Conor Gearty, writing in this weeks New Statesman suggests that things aren't so bad after all. Caveat: this weeks NS has Alistair Campbell as guest editor.

A convention of cant
Conor Gearty

www.newstatesman.com/law-and-reform/200 ... ts-freedom


Too many of today’s self-styled defenders of liberty are covert right-wingers, determined only to protect the rich and the privileged


Conor Gearty is a professor of law at the London School of Economics

What an oddly inaccurate and untenable statement for a professor of law to make. Does he mean that all the left wingers, liberals, and those of no political allegiance - indeed people from all other walks of life - aren't pulling their weight here? And how right wing does he expect us to believe these 'defenders of liberty' are? This is a joke, yes?

 

[rynner2]

Conor Gearty, writing in this weeks New Statesman suggests that things aren't so bad after all. Caveat: this weeks NS has Alistair Campbell as guest editor.

Ah! Nuff said!

 

[Quake42]

What an oddly inaccurate and untenable statement for a professor of law to make. Does he mean that all the left wingers, liberals, and those of no political allegiance - indeed people from all other walks of life - aren't pulling their weight here? And how right wing does he expect us to believe these 'defenders of liberty' are?

Yeah, I don't understand this point at all. What's notable about the growing sentiment against surveillance, databases and nannying is that it unites people across the political spectrum. It's not a left-right issue at all.

That said, it is a common tactic to smear those who opposed to vested government interests by alleging they are all from the far right. Eurosceptics of all political hues have suffered in the same way.

 

[rynner2]

..it is a common tactic to smear those who opposed to vested government interests by alleging they are all from the far right. Eurosceptics of all political hues have suffered in the same way.

Yep, don't I know it?!

I'm often pinkish/blue, sometimes purple, but mostly green....

 

[river_styx]

As always I'm jet black with a ribbon of vermillion running right through me.

It seems the dictatorship expects us all the swallow the "It's for your own protection" line like good little boys and girls. If you go to work and keep paying your tax like a good little robot then you have nothing to worry about.

Of course it's the people who are living off the grid that are the real problem and so some clever little facist pipes up and says "I know, if we had a massive database containing everybodies details we'd then know where all these unknown quantities are living! And while we have all this information we may as well use it for our own nefarious schemes."

They never stop to consider that information on screen never really translates into living, breathing people.

Ahhh... NuLabour. Where everyone is just a number.

 

[Mythopoeika]

..it is a common tactic to smear those who opposed to vested government interests by alleging they are all from the far right. Eurosceptics of all political hues have suffered in the same way.

Yep, don't I know it?!

I'm often pinkish/blue, sometimes purple, but mostly green....

Sounds like you bruise easily, Rynner.

 

[lupinwick]

To be honest I thought the various organisations had these sites sewn up already....

Millions of Britons who use social networking sites such as Facebook could soon have their every move monitored by the Government and saved on a "Big Brother" database.

Ministers faced a civil liberties outcry last night over the plans, with accusations of excessive snooping on the private lives of law-abiding citizens.

The idea to police MySpace, Bebo and Facebook comes on top of plans to store information about every phone call, email and internet visit made by everyone in the United Kingdom. Almost half the British population – some 25 million people – are thought to use social networking sites. There are already proposals under a European Union directive – dating back to after the 7 July 2005 bombs – for emails and internet usage to be monitored and added to a planned database to track terror plots.

Source

I'd love to see the methods they're planning on using to make sense of it all, sounds like some scammer/academic has come up with some believable bullshit. Although to be fair a loose linkage and traffic diagram may do it. Perhaps those who aren't on a social networking site may have more to fear.

 

[rynner2]

Perhaps those who aren't on a social networking site may have more to fear.

Oh gawd, something else to worry about!

 

[lupinwick]

Sorry ryn

 

[lupinwick]

And...

Two hundred schoolchildren in Britain, some as young as 13, have been identified as potential terrorists by a police scheme that aims to spot youngsters who are "vulnerable" to Islamic radicalisation.

The number was revealed to The Independent by Sir Norman Bettison, the chief constable of West Yorkshire Police and Britain's most senior officer in charge of terror prevention.

He said the "Channel project" had intervened in the cases of at least 200 children who were thought to be at risk of extremism, since it began 18 months ago. The number has leapt from 10 children identified by June 2008.

The programme, run by the Association of Chief Police Officers, asks teachers, parents and other community figures to be vigilant for signs that may indicate an attraction to extreme views or susceptibility to being "groomed" by radicalisers. Sir Norman, whose force covers the area in which all four 7 July 2005 bombers grew up, said: "What will often manifest itself is what might be regarded as racism and the adoption of bad attitudes towards 'the West'.

"One of the four bombers of 7 July was, on the face of it, a model student. He had never been in trouble with the police, was the son of a well-established family and was employed and integrated into society.

"But when we went back to his teachers they remarked on the things he used to write. In his exercise books he had written comments praising al-Qa'ida. That was not seen at the time as being substantive. Now we would hope that teachers might intervene, speak to the child's family or perhaps the local imam who could then speak to the young man."

The Channel project was originally piloted in Lancashire and the Metropolitan Police borough of Lambeth in 2007, but in February last year it was extended to West Yorkshire, the Midlands, Bedfordshire and South Wales. Due to its success there are now plans to roll it out to the rest of London, Thames Valley, South Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, and West Sussex.

The scheme, funded by the Home Office, involves officers working alongside Muslim communities to identify impressionable children who are at risk of radicalisation or who have shown an interest in extremist material – on the internet or in books.

Once identified the children are subject to a "programme of intervention tailored to the needs of the individual". Sir Norman said this could involve discussions with family, outreach workers or the local imam, but he added that "a handful have had intervention directly by the police".

He stressed that the system was not being used to target the Muslim community. "The whole ethos is to build a relationship, on the basis of trust and confidence, with those communities," said Sir Norman.

"With the help of these communities we can identify the kids who are vulnerable to the message and influenced by the message. The challenge is to intervene and offer guidance, not necessarily to prosecute them, but to address their grievance, their growing sense of hate and potential to do something violent in the name of some misinterpretation of a faith.

"We are targeting criminals and would-be terrorists who happen to be cloaking themselves in Islamic rhetoric. That is not the same as targeting the Muslim community."

Nor was it criminalising children, he added. "The analogy I use is that it is similar to our well-established drugs intervention programmes. Teachers in schools are trained to identify pupils who might be experimenting with drugs, take them to one side and talk to them. That does not automatically mean that these kids are going to become crack cocaine or heroin addicts. The same is true around this issue."

But Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain said the police ran the risk of infringing on children's privacy. He warned: "There is a difference between the police being concerned or believing a person may be at risk of recruitment and a person actually engaging in unlawful, terrorist activity.

"That said, clearly in recent years some people have been lured by terrorist propaganda emanating from al-Qa'ida-inspired groups. It would seem that a number of Muslim youngsters have been seduced by that narrative and all of us, including the Government, have a role to play in making sure that narrative is seen for what it is: a nihilistic one which offers no hope, only death and destruction."

A Home Office spokesman said: "We are committed to stopping people becoming or supporting terrorists or violent extremists. The aim of the Channel project is to directly support vulnerable people by providing supportive interventions when families, communities and networks raise concerns about their behaviour."

Source

Interesting on a number of points. It seems to be going after radical Islam, which in itself could be seen as a form of discrimination. How about other forms of radicalisation (assuming of course we must spy on our kids)?

Secondly is spying on our kids in this way a good plan? Looks to me like a damn good way to get a whole generation of kids spectacularly pissed off with the establishment.

Does it work? Can it work? Does a child praising radical actions at 13 still do so at 16, 18, 21 or 30?

 

[Analogue Boy]

It smacks of Thoughtcrime to me. But there again there are bunches of kids out there being influenced by all sorts of people - from whatever religious caste or shrine.

Like I have always said, under the mission creep of the surveillance society, we are all suspects now and EACH one of us should expect nothing but the cross-referencing of our data with those we interract with on a daily basis, knowingly or unknowingly, and our tacit sgreement by going along with this ensures these bouncy meetings will be included on databases for a long forseeable future.

That's the end of your privacy right there and a whole load of computerised sweeping generalisations to come.

There isn't an emoticon for how I feel this is all going.

 

[Pete Younger]

There isn't an emoticon for how I feel this is all going.

Oh I don't know, how about this?... :sceptic: or this. :furious:

 

[rynner2]

Now we need ID cards for a trip to the Isle of Wight
By Jason Lewis
Last updated at 3:14 AM on 29th March 2009

Passengers on ferries to the Isle of Wight and Scottish islands such as Mull and Skye will soon have to carry identity papers to comply with new police anti-terror powers.
And travellers flying between British cities or to Northern Ireland face having their personal data logged when booking tickets and checking in.

Until now ferry passengers on most routes in Britain have not been required to produce ID and internal flight passengers only face random police checks.
But under new Government security rules that will come into force next year, personal data, including name, date of birth and home address, will be typed into a computer record for the police by the booking clerk or travel agent.

Passengers will also face further ID checks when boarding their flight or ferry.

Under the new powers, police will be able to track the movements of around 60million domestic passengers a year.

The controversial measures were due to be introduced two years ago, but were dropped after protests from Ulster politicians, who said the plan would construct ‘internal borders’ in the UK.
But last week the Government used the release of its anti-terrorism strategy to quietly reintroduce them. Buried on Page 113 of the 174-page ‘CONTEST’ document was the announcement of ‘new police powers to collect advanced passenger data on some domestic air and sea journeys’.
Last night a Home Office spokesman confirmed the measures would ‘require passengers to show photo ID, such as a driving licence or the (proposed) Government ID cards, when booking tickets for domestic air and sea journeys’.
He added that ‘ferry journeys to the Isle of Wight or the Isle of Skye’ and ‘private jet passengers’ would be included in the new measures, due to be formally announced later this year.
The powers will be introduced using a so-called ‘statutory instrument’ signed off by the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, without the need for a full debate in the House of Commons.

A 2006 Home Office report said: ‘This data will provide the police with invaluable intelligence, enabling them to track the movements of suspected criminal and terrorist passengers.’
However it acknowledged that the new rules would ‘impact upon carrier check-in transaction times’.
‘Since passports are not required on domestic journeys, the required data – taken from travel documents and forms of ID – would need to be keyed in manually,’ the report stated.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... Wight.html

Yes, the Isle of Mull is a well-known hotbed of terrorist activity...

 

[Analogue Boy]

There isn't an emoticon for how I feel this is all going.

Oh I don't know, how about this?... :sceptic: or this. :furious:

How about this?.... :lol:

Richest and delicious irony from the Pointy Finger of Fate pointing at the people who are bringing you Government snooping into private emails and phone calls and internet usage.

Home secretary Jacqui Smith embarrassed by expenses row
Jacqui Smith apologises over adult films expenses claim.

The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, apologised today for an expenses claim which included adult films watched by her husband.

Smith said she mistakenly submitted an expenses claim which included five pay-per-view films, including two adult movies which were viewed at her family home in her Redditch constituency.

The £67 Virgin Media bill was submitted last June as part of Smith's expenses. It included two 18-rated features, each costing £5, which were viewed on 1 April 1 and 6 April last year. The bill also included two viewings of the film Ocean's 13 – at £3.75 each – and an additional £3.50 to watch the film Surf's Up.

Ms Smith said in a statement: "I am sorry that in claiming for my internet connection, I mistakenly claimed for a television package alongside it. As soon as the matter was brought to my attention, I took immediate steps to contact the relevant parliamentary authorities and rectify the situation. All money claimed for the television package will be paid back in full."

The home secretary was said to be "getting on with her job" today despite her embarrassment. A friend told the Press Association that Smith knew there was "no excuse" for the error but added: "To say she's angry with her husband is an understatement

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009 ... enses-film

 

[GNC]

Calling them "adult films" makes them sound as if Mr Smith will be wearing an "Ex-Masturbator" T-shirt from now on, but that might not be the case. Plenty of non-porn films are rated 18, so the papers might be trying to make this sound worse than it was. Does anyone know the names of these films?

 

[Pete Younger]

Does anyone know the names of these films?

Could have been...A commons romp and illicit nights in the chamber.

 

[Spookdaddy]

...Yes, the Isle of Mull is a well-known hotbed of terrorist activity...

Isn't that where the Mullahs come from?

(I was going to try and work in Islaymist Tireerists as well but I think I'll just save time and get me coat now)

 

[ramonmercado]

...Yes, the Isle of Mull is a well-known hotbed of terrorist activity...

Isn't that where the Mullahs come from?

(I was going to try and work in Islaymist Tireerists as well but I think I'll just save time and get me coat now)

The Mullah KIntyre has a holiday cottage there.

 

[sonofajoiner]

Now we need ID cards for a trip to the Isle of Wight
...Yes, the Isle of Mull is a well-known hotbed of terrorist activity...

As suggested by one blogger here this proposal may simply be a way of normalising the carrying of id in order to access public transport, an internal passport as it were, with this eventually become mandatory across the country. A neat little way of getting us all to obtain these supposedly voluntary (at present) id cards wouldn't you say?[/url]

 

[sonofajoiner]

Big Brother is watching: surveillance box to track drivers is backed
• Privacy row brewing over surveillance on the road
• Box could reduce accidents, pollution and congestion

Paul Lewis in Brussels
The Guardian, Tuesday 31 March 2009

The government is backing a project to install a "communication box" in new cars to track the whereabouts of drivers anywhere in Europe, the Guardian can reveal.

Under the proposals, vehicles will emit a constant "heartbeat" revealing their location, speed and direction of travel. The EU officials behind the plan believe it will significantly reduce road accidents, congestion and carbon emissions. A consortium of manufacturers has indicated that the router device could be installed in all new cars as early as 2013.

However, privacy campaigners warned last night that a European-wide car tracking system would create a system of almost total road surveillance.

Details of the Cooperative Vehicle-Infrastructure Systems (CVIS) project, a £36m EU initiative backed by car manufacturers and the telecoms industry, will be unveiled this year.

But the Guardian has been given unpublished documents detailing the proposed uses for the system. They confirm that it could have profound implications for privacy, enabling cars to be tracked to within a metre - more accurate than current satellite navigation technologies.

The European commission has asked governments to reserve radio frequency on the 5.9 Gigahertz band, essentially setting aside a universal frequency on which CVIS technology will work.

The Department for Transport said there were no current plans to make installation of the technology mandatory. However, those involved in the project describe the UK as one of the main "state backers". Transport for London has also hosted trials of the technology.

The European Data Protection Supervisor will make a formal announcement on the privacy implications of CVIS technology soon. But in a recent speech he said the technology would have "great impact on rights to privacy and data".

Paul Kompfner, who manages CVIS, said governments would have to decide on privacy safeguards. "It is time to start a debate ... so the right legal and privacy framework can be put in place before the technology reaches the market," he said.

The system allows cars to "talk" to one another and the road. A "communication box" behind the dashboard ensures that cars send out "heartbeat" messages every 500 milliseconds through mobile cellular and wireless local area networks, short-range microwave or infrared.

The messages will be picked up by other cars in the vicinity, allowing vehicles to warn each other if they are forced to break hard or swerve to avoid a hazard.

The data is also picked up by detectors at the roadside and mobile phone towers. That enables the road to communicate with cars, allowing for "intelligent" traffic lights to turn green when cars are approaching or gantries on the motorway to announce changes to speed limits.

Data will also be sent to "control centres" that manage traffic, enabling a vastly improved system to monitor and even direct vehicles.

"A traffic controller will know where all vehicles are and even where they are headed," said Kompfner. "That would result in a significant reduction in congestion and replace the need for cameras."

Although the plan is to initially introduce the technology on a voluntary basis, Kompfner conceded that for the system to work it would need widespread uptake. He envisages governments making the technology mandatory for safety reasons.Any system that tracks cars could also be used for speed enforcement or national road tolling.

Roads in the UK are already subject to the closest surveillance of any in the world. Police control a database that is fed information from automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras, and are able to deduce the journeys of as many as 10 million drivers a day. Details are stored for up to five years.

However, the government has been told that ANPR speed camera technology is "inherently limited" with "numerous shortcomings".

Advice to ministers obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act advocates upgrading to a more effective car tracking-based system, similar to CVIS technology, but warns such a system could be seen as a "spy in the cab" and "may be regarded as draconian".

Introducing a more benign technology first, the report by transport consultants argues, would "enable potential adverse public reaction to be better managed".

Simon Davies, director of the watchdog Privacy International, said: "The problem is not what the data tells the state, but what happens with interlocking information it already has. If you correlate car tracking data with mobile phone data, which can also track people, there is the potential for an almost infallible surveillance system."

LINK

 

[rynner2]

allowing vehicles to warn each other if they are forced to break hard...

Sic!

No car, no mobile, under the radar! 8)

 

[lupinwick]

They missed a trick, they should have said that each car would be fitted with a mobile phone which would interface with the engine and vehicle management systems to automatically report accidents, breakdowns etc. It may have seemed less of a problem that way.

 

[river_styx]

The government announced today a radical overhaul of the police uniform. The traditional hues of blue are to be replaced by brown, red and black with the customary black shoes to be swapped with high, black leather boots.
Also the now obsolete enquiry of "Wot's all dis den" will be reinstated as a quick stamp of the left foot and followed up with the shorter, authoritarian "Show me your papers".
Anyone failing to produce the proper identity documents will be sent via train to one of the many processing 'camps' where their security situation will be assessed.
Gordon Brun was unavailable for comment as he was still chatting with other leaders of the free world in Cuba, Chile. Burma and China.

 

[Mythopoeika]

I'm sure people will find a way to stop these trackers from working. Lead boxes, anybody?

 

[lupinwick]

Anyone failing to produce the proper identity documents will be sent via train to one of the many processing 'camps' where their security situation will be assessed.

Surely this will require the nationalisation of the rail network? It ain't going to work on the existing private network....