Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

btp.police.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 281 posts

Re: London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

#61

Post by _fw »

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #55
steve_gh wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a technology. What you could do with it, and what you should do with it are completely different things. If you follow the links there is a lot of information about the trial, including a whole series of documents identifying the legal framework that authorises LFR, including rationale under GDPR, Data Protection etc. Of course, this technology could be used for bad purposes. But within a democracy, policing hap…

The UK stopped being a democracy a long time ago. In the UK if you keep your mouth shut during an investigation, it may harm your defense. There is zero right against self-incrimination. It is also the place where you can be jailed for not providing the PIN to your phone. I could go on.

You WILL be charged for not giving the PIN to your phone in an investigation. It’s a strict liability offence which means there’s no legal defence.

The only realistic protection here is a “decoy” partition, a partition that provides access to a separate installation of the OS. That gives the device owner plausible deniability that their real system even exists.

Re: London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

#62

Post by foldr »

_heimdall wrote: post #49
foldr wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As with your sibling comment, what you’re describing is theoretically possible, but it’s also more difficult and resource intensive than the simple dumb alternative of blocking off the area of the planned protest and putting some police officers outside nearby tube stations to arrest anyone who’s clearly intending to head to the protest. It’s already easy for the police to prevent protests in a practical sense. It’s…

What would be grounds for arresting someone at the tube stations? Is it illegal in the UK for police to believe you intend to go a certain area based on how you exit the tube?

Same grounds as for arresting them anywhere else, more or less. I am not saying that the police should ban protests (and they generally don’t). I’m just talking about the practicalities of how they could go about doing it.

Re: London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

#63

Post by _fw »

gspr wrote: post #46
Traster wrote: post #13

I really don't understand why they do trials for this. What would be the failure case for the trial? "We carried out the trial for 6 weeks over X period of time, we arrested Y people, at that rate we've decided this is not compatible with modern liberal democracy, we would've traded a free society for Y+2 arrests over X period but we just didn't quite get there"? As suggested by other people - this is just going to b…

Just a guess, but I would think that a significant motivation for doing a trial is to ensure that the frog is boiled slowly . Opposition can now be met with "it's just a trial, relax". Then you expand the trial a bit. Keep running it until the discourse moves on. And then a few years down the line, when you roll out the full system and people complain, you can counter with "these people are exaggerating their concern…

There’s also transparency theatre here. “If it WAS part of a nefarious system, surely we wouldn’t be talking about it so openly?”

It’s especially disappointing when the entire system is foiled by the balaclavas worn by so many of the country’s criminals every day anyway.

Re: London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

#64

Post by CommanderData »

Traster wrote: post #13

I really don't understand why they do trials for this. What would be the failure case for the trial? "We carried out the trial for 6 weeks over X period of time, we arrested Y people, at that rate we've decided this is not compatible with modern liberal democracy, we would've traded a free society for Y+2 arrests over X period but we just didn't quite get there"? As suggested by other people - this is just going to b…

They are prepared to arrest 90 year old protestors at Palestinian matches for Israel, they won't stop until all critism of that illegal state is silenced.

Re: London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

#65

Post by dofm »

_fw wrote: post #56
dofm wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept of the UK "surveillance state" is actually quite overcooked. It's largely based on myth and dramatisation. BTP probably have a national live feed of railway station cameras. I bloody hope they do, considering it's a rather small, quite centralised police force that covers an enormous rail network, but they are known to have hired "super-recognisers" — skilled CCTV operators — instead. We have had generati…

This is a mature and considered take. But I’m sure you’ll agree: incompetence is not a reliable defence. So what happens when using and optimising these systems becomes a priority for the state? The apparatus is there, and capabilities can catch up to opportunities it presents.

I have to tell you I am not that bothered.

Twice I nearly lost my father to terrorism in London. (Sliding Doors commuter moments both times — by sheer chance not being in the very usual place at the very usual time). I remain pretty relaxed about the idea that people who wish to bomb trains and tubes and buses can't get across London without the awareness that they could be tracked.

You cannot live your life paranoid, and while I think the evidence is clear that we need a small readjustment with the security state (as is evidenced by the BBC's extraordinary battle to get them to admit they lied to a court about a neonazi agent) I think it's better to understand that, yes, sometimes people are watching.

Better than the pretence that constitutional rights protect people they clearly do not protect, or that because the CIA or NSA promise not to do something, they aren't doing it.

I don't think there is any benefit in importing the paranoid style of US politics (R. Hofstadter) to the UK. And I think the weird breathless panic Americans have about London is their problem. We, living here, shouldn't choose to imagine it is true, when it isn't. London is safer than every comparable US city and transport policing is a big, big, big part of why. And if freedom-loving Americans have scared themselves too much to visit, I am not sure why we should care.

Re: London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

#67

Post by Grum9 »

codeduck wrote: post #24
root-parent wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the country that can´t stop dingy boats...this despite journalists always being able to be there on time to take pictures for the Daily Mail...

All right, mate, let's hear your plan for securing the UK's south-eastern coastline.

[dead]

Re: London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

#68

Post by sheauwn »

pkul wrote: post #39
cyanydeez wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'm pretty sure the majority learned plenty well. But that's not whose in charge is it. Even in democracy, especially in America, it's the billionaires and puritans making these choices.

Puritans?

They are likely referring to religious fundamentalists, mostly evangelical Christians. Puritans is a reference to an older christian fundamentalist group in the US that now have a connotation as extreme in their views.

Re: London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

#69

Post by Markoff »

coldtea wrote: post #25

Lest they commit the offense of buying a baseball bat or being stabbed?

TBH wrapped baseball bat is still a baseball bat, just because it's wrapped it doesn't mean you can't use it plus the beginning of the video was missing and it was clearly during some protest

but I agree being stabbed should be legal for victim /s

Re: London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

#70

Post by danw1979 »

Putting aside the social and legal implications of this trial, I find it very interesting how projects like this are often trumpeted to be successful and celebrated at launch (rather than when proven to work, or save costs or whatever) as though the hard bit was actually wading for months or years through several government and private IT bureaucracies, not making a system that delivers what it promises.
Post reply on HN