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London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

btp.police.uk

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Re: London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that make us not a democracy? You are confusing the constitutionally based US system with the parliamentary based UK system. They work differently. We have elections typically every 4-5 years and elect a new government. That's the democracy bit. The laws that our elected representatives make are sometimes good, and sometimes bad. But they are made by the people we elected.

So what you are saying is this is what you want as citizens, to be surveilled and tracked by police 24/7?

I mean, quite a lot of people want that or think they want it in many Western societies. They want the police to be able to find criminals, they want their kids kept off social media, they want terrorists' comms to be intercepted, they want 'immigrants' to not be able to claim benefits, they want voters to be required to produce ID, they want all manner of joined-up information state capabilities and they don't give a shit if they're surveilled and caught up in it until/unless it bites them in the ass.

And the thing is that they're not necessarily wrong to want some of those things, but they don't understand or don't care about collateral damage or what you might perceive as a lack of freedom. So they will happily vote for it.

Democracies vote to shoot themselves in the foot all the time. Look around you.

Re: London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

#83

The way things keep devolving in Britain, the easiest path is to force everyone to wear a camera on their chest like the police do. Then you can arrest people who don't wear them because surely they have something to hide.

Why would they need to do anything so explicit and crude? Everyone carries a smartphone on them at every waking moment and they chose to do it willingly (though unwitting of the implications for personal privacy). They are also ready to use them for surveillance almost on a hair-trigger impulse these days. Thankfully this works against state services almost as much as it works against the public, as channels like Crimebodge are able to show us. But the point is that the state already knows what these devices represent to them in terms of data collection, and are subtle enough to avoid making this a mandatory situation... For now.

Re: London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

#84
post #19

Brazil was so right. We're just an inference away from being jailed. I'm not from UK but it shows how we are all helpless and see in plain conciousness what is coming. When did we lost the grip?

The 1960's was about the time in history when investment went in to surveillance programs. Computer recognition has been around for a very long time, and has always been on the edge for spying on citizens. It's accelerated now because we have future technology that they didn't have back then.

But stemming from which need? Cold war?

Re: London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

#85
post #58
post #19

Brazil was so right. We're just an inference away from being jailed. I'm not from UK but it shows how we are all helpless and see in plain conciousness what is coming. When did we lost the grip?

Brazil was also right about the levels of competence within the bureaucracy.

Need to rewatch with the kids

Re: London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

#86
post #32
post #19

Brazil was so right. We're just an inference away from being jailed. I'm not from UK but it shows how we are all helpless and see in plain conciousness what is coming. When did we lost the grip?

Note to readers: Brazil the Terry Gilliam Kafkaesque movie, not the country.

Thanks, in my view this is a masterpiece, but it might not be obvious to everyone. That you got the reference makes my day.

Re: London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

#88
post #47

They weren't? That's more surprising given the UK surveillance state.

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…

Getting political here a bit, but:

> We have had generations of terror threats to and attacks on our railway system, trains, railway stations. (And the most long-term and persistent of those threats was Irish republican terrorism bankrolled by Americans, for that matter)

Did it ever cross Britain's mind that the whole IRA debacle is of its own doing? Can't you just leave Ireland for good and let them be?

Re: London Underground begins scanning passengers' faces

#90
post #29
post #2

21st century authoritarianism. Humans learned nothing from the 20th century.

Worse, the children of the hippies have become reactionary bigots.

it's the hand-wringing do-gooders that implemented all of the authoritarian practices in the uk.
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