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Facial recognition vans to be rolled out across police forces in England

news.sky.com

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Re: Facial recognition vans to be rolled out across police forces in England

#491

Post by VHRanger »

forgotoldacc wrote: post #458
Shank wrote: post #22

The UK is quickly deploying surveillance state technology that people once decried China for. Whether or not this is ethical or useful, I wish the hypocrisy would be acknowledged. The OSA, the Apple encryption demands, LFR, …, it’s clearly a trend. Has society really become this dangerous that we must deploy these things?

In some ways, it's far exceeded China. China is strict with people rioting or complaining a little too much about the government, but they don't lock people up for saying general no no words or being too patriotic/nationalistic online. And apparently Chinese courts even limited facial recognition (no clue how it'll work in practice though). [1] [1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/china-says-facial-recogni...

> China is strict with people rioting or complaining a little too much about the government, but they don't lock people up for saying general no no words or being too patriotic/nationalistic online.

How absurd is this statement. China jails and disappears people for online statements at a rate several orders of magnitude larger than any western country.

It's borderline ridiculous to even make a comparison. Some quick examples:

1. https://thediplomat.com/2025/03/chinas-system-of-mass-arbitr...

2. https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/28/china/hong-kong-security-arre...

You can get arrested for "picking quarrels" online:

3. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3146188/pic...

Re: Facial recognition vans to be rolled out across police forces in England

#492

Post by arrowsmith »

extraisland wrote: post #487
arrowsmith wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tony Blair's biggest legacy was to take power out of Parliament and spread it wafer-thin over a byzantine network of quangos, courts, public sector bodies and Whitehall bureaucracies to ensure that no matter who you vote for, nothing ever changes.

This is often not understood by many people who simply say "well you should vote harder" or "we need system of voting". The government structure seems to be setup in such a way that any meaningful change is rejected.

This was the Brexiteers' biggest folly, I think. They blamed the EU for the fact that power had become completely unaccountable to the public. But the call was coming from inside the house: in theory we reclaimed our sovereignty, in practice your vote still doesn't matter and your opinion still isn't wanted.

Now the same crowd is turning their attention to the ECHR. It won't help.

Re: Facial recognition vans to be rolled out across police forces in England

#493

Post by octopoc »

zabana wrote: post #346
ginko wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even within the government I can’t understand how a democratically elected politician could support something like this.

maybe democracy isn't so great after all ...

Democracy is like Communism. Every time you point out a problem with Democracy, someone else can point out how it isn't True Democracy(R). For example, in the West there are massive support for applying pressure to Israel to stop the genocide. But very little actually happens because, at least in my country, Israel has literally bought off the key politicians[1]. This isn't True Democracy(R) because the people's representatives have been paid to represent a foreign nation.

[1] https://www.commondreams.org/news/aipac-100-million

Re: Facial recognition vans to be rolled out across police forces in England

#494

Post by gnubee »

moi2388 wrote: post #330
arresin wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Straw man.

Paper straw man*

Bees-wax-coated, non-pfas, organic hay straw man?

Security theatre, like TSA shoe policies, inducing the panopticon. Leaked rumors about facial recognition vans serve their purpose, and we post in these comments while literally in front of networked cameras.

Re: Facial recognition vans to be rolled out across police forces in England

#495

Post by bondarchuk »

youngtaff wrote: post #488
bboygravity wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I mean if the UK is covering up and not counting 1000's of underaged girls being raped (with some police literally participating in the rape) the statistics are bound to look better than they are in reality. Having said that, I don't think the surveillance state they're setting up even has the intent to change any of that.

I wouldn’t believe everything you read in the Daily Mail or that comes out of Farage or Yaxley-Lennon‘s mouth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploit...

Re: Facial recognition vans to be rolled out across police forces in England

#496

Post by mihaaly »

Shank wrote: post #22

The UK is quickly deploying surveillance state technology that people once decried China for. Whether or not this is ethical or useful, I wish the hypocrisy would be acknowledged. The OSA, the Apple encryption demands, LFR, …, it’s clearly a trend. Has society really become this dangerous that we must deploy these things?

Usually it is more about the weakness and incapacity of the authorities that are unable to carry out their job well, or several times they are lazy to perform difficult and tedious tasks, so they put limits on everyone instead, making everyone suspect, just to catch those very very few cases, that they are increasingly unable to.

Re: Facial recognition vans to be rolled out across police forces in England

#497

Post by arrowsmith »

skeezyboy wrote: post #413
la_mezcla wrote: post #194

Isn't UK a democracy? Why then have the people not rejected the initiative? Ah, right - they haven't even been asked.

democracy isnt for the peasants

No, "democracy" is when the peasants vote for the thing you were going to do anyway. If they vote the wrong way then it's "populism".

Re: Facial recognition vans to be rolled out across police forces in England

#498

Post by mrkramer »

Shank wrote: post #22

The UK is quickly deploying surveillance state technology that people once decried China for. Whether or not this is ethical or useful, I wish the hypocrisy would be acknowledged. The OSA, the Apple encryption demands, LFR, …, it’s clearly a trend. Has society really become this dangerous that we must deploy these things?

I often compare China to the British empire: ruthless autocratic capitalistic dictatorship.

Re: Facial recognition vans to be rolled out across police forces in England

#499

Post by Stevvo »

liampulles wrote: post #490

Is there a public conversation in European countries about the value of liberty? I don't mean arguments about how liberty can lead to more economic prosperity, I mean how liberty is valuable on its own terms. Without this value, the state can continue to erect legislation in the name of "safety", or any other perceived inequity in society, until you can no longer move. How perverse that English law used to be a basti…

In the EU we have different liberties to the US. That doesn't necessarily make Europeans less free. For example, wlthe EU has free movement of goods, capital, services, and people across borders. None of which are present in the USA. Does that make Americans less free than Europeans? Some would argue so, but I don't see it.

The UK however, maybe. Brexit was a real dumb idea.

Re: Facial recognition vans to be rolled out across police forces in England

#500

Post by mystraline »

tehjoker wrote: post #213
dathinab wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The UK is quickly deploying surveillance state technology that people once decried China for. they always had been or at least tried, for decades by now, the only thing which had been holding them back was the EU frequently being like "no wtf UK, that is against human rights, EU law, etc." > Has society really become this dangerous that we must deploy these things? no, and it also has a long track record of not onl…

[flagged]

I vouched for this, because there is spirited discussion happening here.

Also, since the UK has now criminalized calling the Gaza situation a genocide under terrorism statutes, the camera vans make sense in driving by peaceful protestors and getting all their faces for arrest later.

For all the Chinese surveillance hatred I've seen over the years, what the UK is doing is loads worse.

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