British Liberty Pt. III

With the confluence of access to modern technology and suspicion of its citizens, Britain has recently commenced down the road of "total information awareness" with computerized tracking of most (virtually all) of its residents at all times. Here are four major ways they accomplish this:

1. Pervasive CCTV (closed-circuit television cameras, A.K.A. surveillance cameras). From Wikipedia:

"based on a small sample in Putney High Street, "guesstimated" the number of surveillance cameras in private premises in London as around 400,000 and the total number of cameras in the UK as around 4,000,000. The UK has 20% of the world's CCTV and one camera for every 14 people."

This article goes into a bit more detail:

"Londoners can each expect to be captured on CCTV cameras up to 300 times a day - the secret state can now follow you from your home, onto the bus, on the bus, getting off the bus and then follow you along the street, and in some areas of the city of London, constantly monitor your movements."

"Barry Hugill, a spokesman for the human rights and civil liberties organization Liberty, said: "This proliferation of cameras is simply astounding. The use of CCTV has just exploded in the last few years, and what is terrifying is that we are alone in the world for not even having a debate about what it means for our privacy."

Automatic computerized facial recognition for these cameras is still in its infancy, but is being tested in various venues including airports and sports stadiums, particularly in the US. Rest assured that Britain will lead the world in deploying this technology nationwide.

2. Automatic number plate recognition systems (license plates). Beginning in earnest this Spring, there are cameras being installed throughout Britain, linked to a central database, which track and record the movements of all vehicles for at least 2 years.

3. Transport For London's Oyster Card, used on buses and trains. It's just an easy payment method, honest. Except they record all your journeys, and keep the records for a couple of years. If you don't use one, you have to pay significantly higher fares. And they've deliberately removed some of the most common ticket options from the cash ticket machines in stations. Want a single journey in central London? Well, now you have to queue at the ticket window for that -- where a belligerently unmotivated person will eventually get around to selling you a ticket, but not before making you feel like you've really inconvenienced them. Now, how about getting one of these handy cards?! You can just swipe it and walk through!

4. Mobile phone tracking. Here, we have a serious problem. In Britain, this is a wholly unregulated activity. Check out the web page for this commercial company in the UK, who gleefully offer, "track your family!" and "track your employees!". Here another company emotes "You can't be with your loved ones every minute of every day, but with [...] you'll always know where they are!". Touching! If this sort of thing doesn't appeal to the worst instincts of every jealous spouse, every paedophile, and every smothering parent, I don't know what will. This is a commercial free-for-all, unrestrained by laws (only a "voluntary industry code of conduct" -- i.e. they want to avoid attracting legislative regulation). Intuitively, all it takes is for one unscrupulous operator to corner the market on "unauthorized" tracking, and become the instant favourite of identity thieves, predators, private investigators, and stalkers everywhere. It wouldn't even be illegal. Taxi companies here can locate you from your call. Of course, it goes without saying that the government and police have access to the same data.

In Britain, if your mobile phone is turned on, any halfway competent police detective or private investigator could tell you where you are, right this moment, without leaving his office. If you drove anywhere today, they could probably tell where you went. If you used public transit, they could probably tell you where you went. If you walked the streets, computers will soon be able to tell them where you went. And if you cowered at home in fear and despair from all this surveillance, well, they know where you live obviously.

But in Britain we have faith that anything the authorities do with this information will be legitimate, and they will protect us from criminals, terrorists, and jealous spouses too.

If I was a criminal trying to avoid being tracked, I'd wear a "hoodie", use pay phones, get a fake number plate (trivial to obtain), and pay a bit more for a cash ticket on the train. Any halfwit criminal has already figured this stuff out, and so has every terrorist -- but at least the authorities can keep a close eye on the rest of us.