London garden bridge users to have mobile phone signals tracked
1–10 of 114 posts
Re: London garden bridge users to have mobile phone signals tracked
#2This does seem worrying, particularly the private citizens being given some limited subset of police power, to issue fines and confiscate items.
> The Garden Bridge Trust said the planning documents detailed theoretical maximum powers that were extremely unlikely to be used
It might be intended that way, but realistially, it seems that the exercise of power is invariably pushed to the theoretical maximum (and often beyond).
Re: London garden bridge users to have mobile phone signals tracked
#3I guess this is another symptom of the UK's rapid slide to totalitarianism. Recreational areas probably shouldn't be strictly surveilled and regulated by quasi-cops at all times.
This isn't public land, even though it's built with public funds.
Re: London garden bridge users to have mobile phone signals tracked
#4This does seem worrying, particularly the private citizens being given some limited subset of police power, to issue fines and confiscate items. > The Garden Bridge Trust said the planning documents detailed theoretical maximum powers that were extremely unlikely to be used It might be intended that way, but realistially, it seems that the exercise of power is invariably pushed to the theoretical maximum (and often b…
It's been around for a while: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Safety_Accreditation...
Re: London garden bridge users to have mobile phone signals tracked
#5I did a talk on privacy topics from a user's perspective at a small 'tech fair' this weekend and I was delighted to see this tweet showing a map of the venue showing everyone's precise location: https://twitter.com/johnebridge/status/662984007370612736
I was able to add it to the slide deck just in time and people were genuinely surprised by it. It's a good thing that the company were transparent about it and shared the image but for many non-technical attendees it was a bit of a wake-up call.
"Do you use the free WiFi at the local supermarkets?" "Did you buy a bunch of liquor and condoms, and then come back a few weeks later and buy pregnancy tests?" "Did you think you were pretty slick because you paid cash?" The audience's eyes getting bigger and bigger...
Re: London garden bridge users to have mobile phone signals tracked
#6The article title is a little misleading:
> people’s progress across the structure would be tracked by monitors detecting the Wi-Fi signals from their phones, which show up the device’s Mac address
...I think if you said "mobile phone signal" to someone round here they'd assume you were talking about the GSM radio. If you think shopping malls / cities aren't already using MAC addresses sniffed during WiFi discovery to track location you're sadly mistaken (which is why iOS started randomizing them from iOS 8 onwards).
Re: London garden bridge users to have mobile phone signals tracked
#7This article more or less describes what a police state would look like if the Church of England designed it. A controlled, plasticised, corporate Little England, where fun is monitored and must be of an approved nature, freedom of expression is allowed as long as you don't express anything disagreeable, and the public have no democratic rights at all.
Yet another small, sad indicator that control over the lives of Londoners and the spaces they live in is for sale to anyone with the money to buy it. “A private place operating as a public space” is not what I want to have on London's limited real estate.
Re: London garden bridge users to have mobile phone signals tracked
#8This does seem worrying, particularly the private citizens being given some limited subset of police power, to issue fines and confiscate items. > The Garden Bridge Trust said the planning documents detailed theoretical maximum powers that were extremely unlikely to be used It might be intended that way, but realistially, it seems that the exercise of power is invariably pushed to the theoretical maximum (and often b…
It's been around for a while: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Safety_Accreditation...
Yeah, I figured from the article that it was existing program. Doesn't make it any less worrying, though.
Re: London garden bridge users to have mobile phone signals tracked
#9That's why Richard Stallman correctly described mobile phones as tracking and surveillance devices:
> https://stallman.org/rms-lifestyle.html
"Cell phones are tracking and surveillance devices. They all enable the phone system to record where the user goes, and many (perhaps all) can be remotely converted into listening devices."
Re: London garden bridge users to have mobile phone signals tracked
#10Welcome to the future your cavalier "It's OK when I do it" attitudes towards mass surveillance... er... I'm sorry... I mean "telemetry" are producing.