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9M logs of Brits' road journeys spill from number-plate camera dashboard

theregister.co.uk

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Re: 9M logs of Brits' road journeys spill from number-plate camera dashboard

#41

Post by mellosouls »

raziel2p wrote: post #28
celticninja wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is it a criminal offense to access an open website? if you had to use even a default password you could imagine it being improperly accessed,but if it's just open to the internet how is a criminal offence committed?

People have been tried and committed for crimes in court for this type of thing. It probably varies from country to country but there is definitely legal precedence that if you come across data that you know shouldn't be publicly accessible, you can't just pretend that it's okay to use it as if it was. Intent and common sense probably plays into it. I would link some sources because you shouldn't trust just my vague…

Note in the UK the CPS guidance which talks about "unauthorised access".

There has to be knowledge on the part of the offender that the access is unauthorised

So I guess it depends what the "offender" googled and what the link description said before they clicked it wrt open websites. And no doubt their explanation and demeanour when questioned etc.

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/cybercrime-prosecution...

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Re: 9M logs of Brits' road journeys spill from number-plate camera dashboard

#42

Post by dsfyu404ed »

mjburgess wrote: post #38
zynkb0a wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I read your comment, I realized I intuitively view open access to surveillance systems like this as more desirable than limited access, and I don't know how to articulate that feeling. I'd consider myself privacy-conscious, however it is clear that this sort of open access further limits my "privacy." I wonder if privacy advocacy is more about aversion to certain power imbalances rather than privacy as an end it…

Privacy as a constraint on government action, yes. Aren't all constraints on government action essentially concerned with addressing the power imbalance? But privacy itself is also a claim against your neighbor: not only is it illegal for them to blackmail you, it is impermissible to obtain the grounds for that blackmail. I'm perhaps more afraid of my neighbor than I am the government. Rapists are more often people y…

I'd wager that there's vanishingly few people who don't have some thing they do, some demographic they belong to, some association with something, that some vocal minority would crucify them over while the apathetic majority stand idly by. The government can't always protect you from this kind of threat. Being a subject of controversy is not a protected class, your employer can fire you (in most states), people can refuse to do business with you, etc. etc for no reason other than because they don't want to be involved. As we've seen with online witch hunts, people's lives can be ruined, or at least set back years or decades by controversy that stems from private information getting into the wrong hands.

Urban areas have privacy by blending into the crowd. Rural areas have privacy by density, there simply aren't enough people to observe everything. Technology is making both those obsolete.

Re: 9M logs of Brits' road journeys spill from number-plate camera dashboard

#43

Post by alexchamberlain »

There seems to be an assumption that this would come under GDPR, but that's not obvious to me (excluding the potential images of people).

Putting aside ethical concerns , would there be any legal ramifications for capturing the presence of a car at a certain location and sharing it? The licence plate identifies the car, not the driver. (Similar schemes are in place for boats and airplanes of course)

Re: 9M logs of Brits' road journeys spill from number-plate camera dashboard

#44

Post by asplake »

m3nu wrote: post #39

For the Corona tracing, they were looking at the centralized system, right? Still the latest plan? Anyone seeing parallels? :-)

Well of course there are parallels. But on the other hand, I have very high regard for UK government digital (having twice worked in that space) and would be much more inclined to trust them than a local authority, especially where the potential benefit might be enormous.

Re: 9M logs of Brits' road journeys spill from number-plate camera dashboard

#45

Post by danielbarla »

celticninja wrote: post #15
pjc50 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather difficult to publish their results without admitting to a criminal offence..

is it a criminal offense to access an open website? if you had to use even a default password you could imagine it being improperly accessed,but if it's just open to the internet how is a criminal offence committed?

I'm somewhat puzzled when this defense comes up, but I think it's worthwhile debating it. Does the condition of how you came upon the contents have any real bearing on the matter? I mean, nobody is really saying that accessing an open website itself is illegal. But it's not as if this circumstance will alleviate all future repercussions of your subsequent actions. I suspect I don't have to give analogies of what might be an inappropriate action - there are a number of things you could find on an open website that could be illegal to distribute.

I suspect a much more interesting argument exactly is the issue with having this particular data - what laws are being broken by redistributing it (I don't have the answer). But that was not the point that you raised, hence my reply.

Re: 9M logs of Brits' road journeys spill from number-plate camera dashboard

#46

Post by mhh__ »

celticninja wrote: post #15
pjc50 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather difficult to publish their results without admitting to a criminal offence..

is it a criminal offense to access an open website? if you had to use even a default password you could imagine it being improperly accessed,but if it's just open to the internet how is a criminal offence committed?

I think almost anything can be illegal under the computer misuse act if they want it to be.

Re: 9M logs of Brits' road journeys spill from number-plate camera dashboard

#47

Post by zynkb0a »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #42
mjburgess wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Privacy as a constraint on government action, yes. Aren't all constraints on government action essentially concerned with addressing the power imbalance? But privacy itself is also a claim against your neighbor: not only is it illegal for them to blackmail you, it is impermissible to obtain the grounds for that blackmail. I'm perhaps more afraid of my neighbor than I am the government. Rapists are more often people y…

I'd wager that there's vanishingly few people who don't have some thing they do, some demographic they belong to, some association with something, that some vocal minority would crucify them over while the apathetic majority stand idly by. The government can't always protect you from this kind of threat. Being a subject of controversy is not a protected class, your employer can fire you (in most states), people can r…

>people's lives can be ruined, or at least set back years or decades by controversy that stems from private information getting into the wrong hands

Private information "getting into the wrong hands" often seems to be an issue of misplaced confidence in the confidentiality of that information. In an era where "surveillance is democratized," how we think about the existence of "private information" might radically change. In your example, the words, actions, and ideas that would have generated controversy might not have ever been spoken or acted upon in the first place, or there would be such an apparent abundance that the "controversy" wouldn't hold ground. More of a fringe position here, but maybe certain ideas and actions wouldn't even be conceived of in a post-privacy world, as the result of the loss of an expectation that those ideas or actions could be kept confidential.

It certainly feels like the cat's out of the bag when it comes to mass surveillance. Facial recognition, for example, isn't going away, and there doesn't seem to be enough political / institutional momentum to counter the value that is provided to organizations by the data that one might view as an invasion of privacy. There doesn't seem to be a meaningful debate about maintaining personal privacy, so maybe the discussion should be who has access to these tools, systems, and institutions moving forward.

Re: 9M logs of Brits' road journeys spill from number-plate camera dashboard

#48

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

License plates should be done away with. Replace them with RFID tags that log, and can alert the driver each time they're activated. Drivers could switch them off when they're at home or parked.

Anyone, not just the government can operate an ALPR system and record this data for whatever purpose they wish.

Re: 9M logs of Brits' road journeys spill from number-plate camera dashboard

#49

Post by [deleted] »

tcd wrote: post #32
globular-toast wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it a GDPR issue? You can't identify the driver from the number plate.

You can once the inevitable database leak of driver information details leaks from the DVLA/insurance companies. It might take a few years, but you can use this dataset in the future to understand who owned the vehicle at this time and reconstruct their movements. Using collected information it's possible a computer can remember every journey you've ever taken; this car with this reg plate was here at this time at th…

[deleted]

Re: 9M logs of Brits' road journeys spill from number-plate camera dashboard

#50

Post by kwhitefoot »

alexchamberlain wrote: post #43

There seems to be an assumption that this would come under GDPR, but that's not obvious to me (excluding the potential images of people). Putting aside ethical concerns , would there be any legal ramifications for capturing the presence of a car at a certain location and sharing it? The licence plate identifies the car, not the driver. (Similar schemes are in place for boats and airplanes of course)

The driver of a private motor vehicle is almost invariably the registered keeper. In most of the case where it is not then it is a family member.

Are you implying that the slightest doubt about the identity of the driver means that it is perfectly alright to collect the data? because if so that surely also applies to many other GDPR situations, where families share a single computer for instance.

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