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Stop replacing London’s phone boxes with corporate surveillance

wired.co.uk

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Re: Stop replacing London’s phone boxes with corporate surveillance

#61

Post by ljm »

icc97 wrote: post #41

This level of surveillance is a shame given that by luck of never being invaded by the Nazis there's no ID cards in the UK. Somehow also people managed to stop attempts to get ID cards introduced. It might even be because of this. That is, it's easy for other European governments to track people as they have to carry ID at all times. Because the UK government are worried about the lack of this, they go down the CCTV…

The UK government has an unhealthy obsession with surveillance but ID cards are a strange target. They offer nothing except convenience, considering if you ever want to buy alcohol or travel abroad as a Brit, then you have to get a driving license and a passport.

The end result is that something as simple as proving who you are on a document, or renewing your driving license, requires that you provide every address you've lived at for 3 years and essentially get a credit check. Electoral roll data is sold to third parties and is used for junk mail as much as it is identity checking.

An ID card would put that entire business venture to an end, because your personal ID number and embedded certificates would be more than enough to prove you are who you say you are. This is comparatively a blessing on the continent, where many EU countries have updated their tech. Being a Brit living around Europe for some years, the hoops I have to jump through to prove who I am in the UK are an incredible annoyance and my letter box is already filling with unwanted solicitations. I'm probably being tracked _more_ than I was with my EU ID cards!

Re: Stop replacing London’s phone boxes with corporate surveillance

#62

Post by secfirstmd »

lurker456 wrote: post #45
gaius wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Briton are 95% comfortable with massive surveillance. Here's a true story, a few years ago I was supervising a diver training session at a swimming pool in London, it was closed to members of the public at the time. My locker was broken into, my phone, tablet, credit cards, car keys and bizarrely a load of Mexican money I happened to have in my wallet was stolen, as were a couple of other lockers. Thank God I hadn't…

That's not proof it doesn't work. If you ran the GCHQ and you had a way to track everyone, would you let it be used to solve petty crime ? Much safer to use it sparingly.

The Security Service has access to all publically paid for CCTV cameras in the UK. Motorways, airports, city centres etc

Re: Stop replacing London’s phone boxes with corporate surveillance

#63

Post by aluhut »

slackuser wrote: post #59
aluhut wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since someone already explained, would you mind explaining why the part about data in the article didn't strike you as bad in the first place?

Probably because there i know that my data have been already sold. McDonald will sell my data when i use they WiFi. My network provider will sell my data, my phone provider. Fitness company also will sell me. Facebook consider me as a product for 5-6 years already. I think in modern society it is a normal thing

First: you speak for yourself. I for example share nothing on my fake name Facebook account. I use it to tell relatives to call me/send me a Signal message. Even with an Facebook account, they can only share what you give them. Nobody forces you to use McDonalds WiFi. Use your data plan. Your ISP must have some kind of stricter regulations even outside of Europe (where I am) then some ad sponsored access point.

There are huge differences and data minimization is a thing.

Your approach however is terrible. It makes it look like everything is lost and there is nothing to protect anymore. This is not only wrong, it sends out a horrible message to others.

Re: Stop replacing London’s phone boxes with corporate surveillance

#64

Post by rahoulb »

HenryBemis wrote: post #26

Briton are 95% comfortable with massive surveillance. The "average Joe" has the "I got nothing to hide" and that "go get them paedophiles", which are very true statements. We are talking about a nation that has 4,200,000 [1] cameras surveilling them and nobody bats an eye about this. For some reason, Britons have decided (or was forced to them and they didn't push back) that privacy is not necessary, so, let them hav…

I would say Britons are 95% comfortable with government surveillance. But there is a growing backlash against private/corporate surveillance.

Of course, there is a grey-area with government surveillance when things like ANPR services are outsourced with completely opaque contracts.

Re: Stop replacing London’s phone boxes with corporate surveillance

#65

Post by alex_young »

dvdhnt wrote: post #60
HenryBemis wrote: post #26

Briton are 95% comfortable with massive surveillance. The "average Joe" has the "I got nothing to hide" and that "go get them paedophiles", which are very true statements. We are talking about a nation that has 4,200,000 [1] cameras surveilling them and nobody bats an eye about this. For some reason, Britons have decided (or was forced to them and they didn't push back) that privacy is not necessary, so, let them hav…

Okay, I'm going to toss out downvote material because I think it's important to say. > Briton are 95% comfortable with massive surveillance. I think Americans are actually 99% comfortable with massive surveillance but can't admit it because of our culture. We consume reality TV like no one's business, watch YouTube to see people do dumb things in real life, and just in general, feel the urge to record and capture eve…

Maybe I'm just part of that 1% who will reject this idea.

Is a 1% reduction in any crime really worth a totalitarian world where the state can hunt down people who disagree with them?

Re: Stop replacing London’s phone boxes with corporate surveillance

#66

Post by dozzie »

bayerrr wrote: post #54
icc97 wrote: post #41

This level of surveillance is a shame given that by luck of never being invaded by the Nazis there's no ID cards in the UK. Somehow also people managed to stop attempts to get ID cards introduced. It might even be because of this. That is, it's easy for other European governments to track people as they have to carry ID at all times. Because the UK government are worried about the lack of this, they go down the CCTV…

As a German, you could not be more wrong with your idea about ID cards. ID cards are not used to track your movement. There is no need to show an ID to the police unless they have suspicion that you committed a crime and confront you. There are no passport controls along roads. There is a huge difference between the scales at which passport controls and CCTV can be executed, too, because passport controls require wor…

> As a German, you could not be more wrong [...]

Why do you think he's German?

Re: Stop replacing London’s phone boxes with corporate surveillance

#67

Post by Animats »

Sure the West and China are both turning into biometric dystopias buuuuuuuut ours delivers fried chicken to your train seat. - Naomi Wu, Shenzhen.

For some railroad lines in China, you can order food while on a train and have it delivered to you at a station. That requires finding the passenger quickly, so some combination of cell phone tracking and face recognition is used.[1] KFC is using this system.

China's approach to Big Brother is more like a service function. The Government knows who you are and what you're doing, but China has been like that for centuries. There's no tradition of anonymity. The older paper-based systems worked when people didn't move much. The newer technology is being used to provide routine services, such as convenience store checkout and finding purse snatchers.

London has a lot of cameras, but many of them are old, so they have poor resolution. Newer 4K surveillance cameras [2] finally have enough resolution to be useful for recognizing faces at 40 feet or so.

[1] http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2017-07/13/content_300925... [2] https://www.lorextechnology.com/articles/What-is-4k-Video/R-...

Re: Stop replacing London’s phone boxes with corporate surveillance

#68

Post by icc97 »

bayerrr wrote: post #54
icc97 wrote: post #41

This level of surveillance is a shame given that by luck of never being invaded by the Nazis there's no ID cards in the UK. Somehow also people managed to stop attempts to get ID cards introduced. It might even be because of this. That is, it's easy for other European governments to track people as they have to carry ID at all times. Because the UK government are worried about the lack of this, they go down the CCTV…

As a German, you could not be more wrong with your idea about ID cards. ID cards are not used to track your movement. There is no need to show an ID to the police unless they have suspicion that you committed a crime and confront you. There are no passport controls along roads. There is a huge difference between the scales at which passport controls and CCTV can be executed, too, because passport controls require wor…

I'm talking about when the police stop you. I live in Belgium and I've seen the oppressive stop and searches the police do on buses. They come on and haul people off.

You are required to have an ID on you at all times. If you don't have an ID on you you've committed an offence.

It makes it very easy for police to find identities of people they question. In the UK you have the privacy that you haven't committed an offence by not having an ID so the police can't detain you. So you can just give a fake address and the police can't do anything.

Re: Stop replacing London’s phone boxes with corporate surveillance

#69

Post by icc97 »

dozzie wrote: post #66
bayerrr wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a German, you could not be more wrong with your idea about ID cards. ID cards are not used to track your movement. There is no need to show an ID to the police unless they have suspicion that you committed a crime and confront you. There are no passport controls along roads. There is a huge difference between the scales at which passport controls and CCTV can be executed, too, because passport controls require wor…

> As a German, you could not be more wrong [...] Why do you think he's German?

They don't, I'm assuming they're speaking as a German. I'm a Brit living in Belgium.

I see the difference and I wish I could have the privacy of no ID cards back.

Re: Stop replacing London’s phone boxes with corporate surveillance

#70

Post by icc97 »

ljm wrote: post #61
icc97 wrote: post #41

This level of surveillance is a shame given that by luck of never being invaded by the Nazis there's no ID cards in the UK. Somehow also people managed to stop attempts to get ID cards introduced. It might even be because of this. That is, it's easy for other European governments to track people as they have to carry ID at all times. Because the UK government are worried about the lack of this, they go down the CCTV…

The UK government has an unhealthy obsession with surveillance but ID cards are a strange target. They offer nothing except convenience, considering if you ever want to buy alcohol or travel abroad as a Brit, then you have to get a driving license and a passport. The end result is that something as simple as proving who you are on a document, or renewing your driving license, requires that you provide every address y…

Life with an ID card is nice and easy. But you have no chance of anonymity.

Sure your data gets sold, but if you're careful and you care about it you can keep your anonymity. That's a precious thing that you can never have with ID cards because you're illegal in most of the rest of Europe if you don't have one.

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