When back in the early 00's the UK wanted to introduce a picture ID card, there were huge protests across the country that resulted in the scheme being shelved indefinitely. It took the UK years to even introduce a picture driving license (you might have seen the "counterpart" old driving licenses which were in use until very recently. They were a single A4 sheet with no picture on it).
How ironic that despite the continued protests against picture ID cards based on privacy concerns, the UK is the most watched country based on the number of CCTV cameras per square mile, and now this.
>How ironic that despite the continued protests against picture ID cards based on privacy concerns, the UK is the most watched country based on the number of CCTV cameras per square mile, and now this.
It's because people have given up hope of winning the war against the surveillance state but they still feel like they can opportunistically win a few battles.
The National ID Card controversy wasn't simply about a photo-ID card (as noted, UK driving licenses are biometric photo-ID cards—and have been since before the NID was mooted). The real problem was the integration of a National Identity Register, a universal biometric ID database storing numerous non-essential items that was to act as a central authentication point for access to all government (and many corporate) services. Failure to register was to be a criminal offense (in US terms, a felony); failure to update within a week of changing address, ditto (don't ask how this would work for the homeless, or for students and workers living away from home part-time): it was to be carried at all times on pain of a hefty fine: changes to your address had to be reflected in a new physical card (which would be charged for): and a whole bunch more stuff.
Let's just say that it wasn't just a picture ID card; it was the camel's nose under the tent flap for a massively intrusive national database system with huge potential for misuse, abuse, and creeping changes of scope.
Today the UK has a de-facto biometric authentication system in the shape of the Identity and Passport Office database and the DVLA driing license database: between these, there's roughly 90% coverage of the adult population. But because it's opt-in and voluntary, and the police can't at any moment challenge you to produce a card and arrest you instantly if you're not carrying it, it hasn't produced the same push-back.
(As for those CCTV cameras? Most of them are in private premises, subject to GDPR data sharing restrictions. It's actually illegal for a shop CCTV system to cover the pavement outside, for example. The police only have access to them when a crime has been reported and half of them aren't working, as my wife discovered when her bicycle was stolen from right under a cluster of them …)
There was a popular campaign against the government keeping around the hand written, cardboard ww2 National ID cards on civil liberties grounds. They didn't even all have photos, and were super easy to forge! Attlee had kept them around throughout the Labour administration and proposed using them, and this will sound oh so familiar to anyone who remembers the Blair attempts at an ID card and database, as a "a key that could be used to access all the benefits of the state, from rationing to voting to NHS services". The chief Law Lord in the final appeal said of requiring "all and sundry" to produce ID cards that it "inclines them to obstruct the police instead of to assist them".
It was ultimately Churchill's second term that repealed them in the early 50s. The same decade a Conservative politician and lawyer drafted the first European Convention on Human Rights.
Same old arguments, 70 years on. I'm not sure those Tories would recognise today's bunch though. :)
It's actually illegal for a shop CCTV system to cover the pavement outside, for example.
Do you have a source for that, please? I've been wondering about this kind of issue for a long time, as a lot of private premises now have cameras obviously overlooking public space outside or even more private areas like the gardens of neighbouring properties. Personally I find that quite intrusive in terms of the public spaces and rather inappropriate in terms of neighbouring private spaces, but given the many ambiguities in our data protection and privacy laws, it's not obvious to me what would make it illegal in black and white. Both the UK government web site and the ICO do have specific guidance about domestic CCTV systems that clearly allows the possibility of and provides guidance for systems that overlook areas outside the operator's own property.
Where the hell are all these Brexit loons when you need them? ID card protests for window dressing only - as long as it's Her Majesty's surveillance state instead of the EUSSR Bob's your uncle?
I was a campaigner against ID cards back then, and this is basically spot on: even back then, the people on the street who supported ID cards mentioned immigration. What happened? The biometric residence permits. ID cards are mandatory if you're a non-EU immigrant. The rest of the "hostile environment" made proof of immigration status mandatory for employment and renting a house. We got all the pieces of a surveillance state except the ID cards - because that's what the public wanted.
All of the Windrush fiasco and other Home Office outrages show that the UK is pretty comfortable with bureaucratic authoritarianism so long as they think it only applies to immigrants.
Perhaps - assuming they could get one in the first place. Alternatively the application process could have simply accelerated their deportation. Things might have gone better under the Blair government, but the whole point of ID cards is to impose the state's view on everyone's status.
Indeed it would have. I think the worst kinds of surveillance mechanisms are the ones that can cause a lot of suspicion and false positives, but don't allow those affected to refute any allegations. Identity documents are not like that at all. On the contrary.
Because the one thing that old people fear more than Brussels is the teenagers down the block. If you truly believe that you are "good" and that only other people are "bad" then things like picture ID seem warm and friendly.
> (you might have seen the "counterpart" old driving licenses which were in use until very recently
Non-photo UK driving licenses are in fact still legal [0] although they are not now issued. If you need a replacement or update (e.g. on address change) the new license will be the photo version. They are still valid for hire car.
If I need photo ID I use my passport. I do not therefore have an official photo-based identity document on me when travelling routinely in the UK.
Yes we as a country seem to be according to polls mostly in favour, but it depends upon how the poll question is framed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polls_on_the_British_n.... However a vocal minority are strongly against it. However, over in Europe - many countries there have national ID cards and equally I'm sure they have their share of distractors against them above and beyond criminal type reasons.
As for the UK being the most watched CCTV density - well - have you seen the quality of most of those CCTV's, egads. Just look at some of the images the UK police release which have been pulled from CCTV. Very rare that their is ever anything that would stand up in court. Then most of these CCTV are private, mostly shops.
So yes, we may (not sure if still have) the most per square mile, but darn - the quality on so many is terrible. But then, older camera's and the rush to be first often does that. Beijing on the other hand, now that's a CCTV network I dare say who could tell you were you lost your house keys in the park if so inclined.
Because some people are happy with the public discussing ID cards with pictures, when the real deal is somewhere else.
The same in Germany with taxes, people discuss increasing taxes for the rich, who are happy to confront this, because the real deal in Germany is not paying taxes, not paying social security and health insurance by the rich.
Well..CCTV cameras caught the 2005 bomber's at King's Cross Station and helped establish their identities and their full itinerary when cross-referenced with other CCTV videos
That doesn't mean its worth it. There is always a tradeoff and I would rather live in a world where I know I am free from surveillance than a world where I am .000001% safer or criminals are caught 10% faster.
It's not just safety vs. privacy, it's safety vs. safety: pervasive surveillance can and does make us less safe due to the potential for a future, less benevolent, government to abuse it to oppress politically unpopular groups.
Do you have any proof to backup your empty claim? It may discourage pocket picker at your local market.. when it comes to blowing up King Cross I bet you more survelieance the more incouraging to terror. These folls live for five minute survelliance video of one of their own walking down with backpack across few CCTV cameras on all national News Stations, so yeah I bet you its a one big fat encouragement to them to harm more.
> pervasive surveillance can and does make us less safe due to the potential for a future, less benevolent, government to abuse it to oppress politically unpopular groups.
Do you disagree that pervasive surveillance would make it easier for an oppressive government to collect data on their opponents and imprison or harass them? The East German Stasi didn’t have the advantage of universal surveillance and they did a great job of suppressing political opposition. Do you think their job would have been easier or harder with pervasive logging of all conversations conducted electronically or in public or private spaces?
In the grandparent comment’s specific example police stalked and killed a completely innocent man because they thought he looked like one of the bombers from their CCTV tapes
Just the presence of surveillance alone discourages criminals from acting in the first place. Without any surveillance, I don't think criminal activity will increase by just .000001%.
In the case of (PUBLIC) meatspace, physical surveillance (e.g., cameras), I'm onboard with the Big Brother panopticon state. Bad, meaningful stuff happens in meatspace, like explosions.
When it comes to cyberspace, digital surveillance, I fled Windows for Linux and read /r/StallmanWasRight. Bad stuff happens in cyberspace, but none of it is meaningful enough to me to warrant the limitations to privacy that we endure IRL.
Does anyone else have this arbitrary configuration of opinions?
Well. Strangely I happen to be one of the folks in that .000001%, so I apologize if my opinions have been shaped differently.
I lost one of my ex-school mates in an market-place explosion (2005 Delhi bombing). While the London Bombing suspects were identified, all suspects in the Delhi bombing that same year were released due to "lack of evidence".
I am completely in favor of surveillance of public property.
> While the London Bombing suspects were identified
They were identified. After they’d blown themselves up on trains and a bus. The one person ‘identified’ as it was happening was in fact mistakenly identified and killed by the police.
Surveillance only helps in situations like this where the authorities have intelligence upfront. Even then you can argue that regular on-foot surveillance is a more proportionate approach over serveilling the entire nation ‘just in case’.
I was in London when the bombs went off (I worked on Russel Square along from the bus bomb - I would walk past the site, every day, to and from work; and have a friend who was on the train going from Liverpool St that was blown up). And, I remember being nearby (and hearing) the IRA bomb in Bishopsgate. I still believe very strongly that governments should not have carte blanche rights to spy on all citizens. Privacy is more valuable
But if we make a world safe from these .000001% events, what do you think that will look like? I can only imagine a dystopian/ Orwellian society where we are all encouraged to report any suspicious behavior and everything becomes a race to the bottom, a Prisoner's Dilemma where I feel pressured to rat out my neighbor for _something_ before he does it to me.
Who's asking everyone to report suspicious behaviour ? You have raised a _strawman_ argument. Automatic surveillance of public property and public spaces is in my opinion necessary for analysis, investigation and prosecution of terrorists. This must be done by career intelligence folks not by amateurs.
Pervasive surveillance will inevitably lead to machine learning techniques being used to analyse the data which will massively increase the rates of false positives, people who aren’t a threat but who the system flags as potential threats. Freedom and security trade off against one another.
Citation needed. You are making a strong statement about the inevitable future based on what? Sounds like evidence as strong as your claim would be worth some very interesting papers.
Have you been paying attention to anything regarding government surveillance in the past decade? NSA? Five Eyes? Governments are thirsty for any new tech that allows them to amass data fast about public behavior. There's startups that exist right now that use ML techniques to analyze security footage for bad actors. There was a Japanese one on the HN front page a couple days ago. This isn't a slippery slope argument, this shit is happening right now.
The question is where do you draw the line for removing privacy to enable law enforcement? Would you consider a system that monitors every individual at all times because it would almost guarantee that any criminal is identified?
Its not merely prevention of one bombing. It is also prosecution and preventing future bombings. Otherwise the folks who plan these bombings are free to organize the next bombing.
That was done by looking at the tapes afterwards. But hiw.many crimes were actually prevented by the cameras? Do they provably act as a deterrent? In how many cases did the cameras result in help arriving on time?
Only MI5/GCHQ/OSCT can answer your questions with actual numbers.
(EDIT)
There are several studies on effectiveness of camera surveillance on crime prevention.The UK unlike other nations actually has a lot of material here.
I haven't followed up. Are these numbers published? If not, I would tend to assume that they are too embarrassing to show. But despite my bias, I'm actually curious.
>Well..CCTV cameras caught the 2005 bomber's at King's Cross Station and helped establish their identities and their full itinerary when cross-referenced with other CCTV videos
I'm not disputing any facts if they are indeed facts. I am merely pointing out how the public opinion can be shaped to react differently given the same subject wrapped differently.
I am very sure, inspecting phones has, or will at some point in future be used to stop some crime or terrorist attack, but that's not the point here.
Yes, cameras in public spaces are one thing. Surveillance of private property (personal phones) is a completely different thing. I agree that the latter is terrible.
Oh Shit - I had NO idea the old driving licenses were invalid!
Oh Gosh. It's been years since I owned a car, but I've been merrily hiring them here and abroad two or three times a year. I'm a bit surprised that no one has denied me a vehicle as a result :\
Thanks for the heads up - I guess I need to get mine updated!
- ed
OH. PHEW. @KineticLensman states this isn't quite the case in another response here. I did wodner why none of the hire companies had said anything!
How ironic that despite the continued protests against picture ID cards based on privacy concerns, the UK is the most watched country based on the number of CCTV cameras per square mile, and now this.