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wepmob2000
Trustworthy Freedom Fighter
Joined: 03 Aug 2006
Posts: 431
Location: North East England
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 Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 3:15 am Post subject: Gestapo Watch - ANPR Journey Tracking by Stealth |
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based on the old 'Glutton' system installed in the late 80s & early 90s during the troubles in Northern Ireland
New speed limits will also introduce a new era of surveillance
The news earlier this this week that the Government is to introduce a new lower speed limit of 50 mph has been met with criticism from motoring groups. Its surprising that this plan hasn't aroused much interest in those who value personal liberties, it ushers in a new age of surveillance where the Government can track anyones car journey. Its weird how the press also seems to have neglected to mention that this move will allow a rapid introduction of road usage charging....?!
Under the spurious guise of 'road safety', with some fudged figures that show the UK has more road deaths than in Sweden, Norway, or the Netherlands, the Government is set to quietly introduce one of the biggest infringments of personal liberties ever seen in this country.
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From The Sunday Times
March 8, 2009
Road speed limit cut to 50mph
Steven Swinford
THE government is to cut the national speed limit from 60mph to 50mph on most of Britain’s roads, enforced by a new generation of average speed cameras.
The reduction, to be imposed as early as next year, will affect two thirds of the country’s road network. Drivers will still be able to reach 70mph on motorways and dual carriageways and 60mph on the safest A roads.
Jim Fitzpatrick, the roads minister, defended the plan, which will be the most dramatic cut since 1978, when the national speed limit was reduced from 70mph to 60mph.
“There will be some in the driving lobby who think this is a further attack and a restriction on people’s freedom,” he said. “But when you compare that to the fact we are killing 3,000 people a year on our roads, it would be irresponsible not to do something about it. I’m sure that the vast majority of motorists would support the proposals.”
Britain’s roads were the safest in the world until 2001, relative to its population, but have since fallen into sixth place behind countries such as the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway. Some challenge that statistic because of the disparity of the countries’ sizes.
The new 50mph limit is intended to reduce the high death toll on rural roads, where, in 2007, 69% of car crash fatalities took place. It will apply to single carriage A, B and C roads. Local authorities will have the power to raise the limit to 60mph on the safest roads, but will have to justify it.
Ministers plan to use average speed cameras, which monitor speeds over distances of up to six miles, to help enforce the new limit. The cameras have already been installed at 43 locations. The Home Office is expected to approve their wider use later this year.
Speed Check Services, the company behind the cameras, claims the number of deaths or serious injuries at its sites has fallen on average by 60%.
Fitzpatrick said: “If you look at the figures on rural roads, there are disproportionately more people dying there than on any other roads. The nature of some rural roads, with dips and bends and difficult conditions, means that the 60mph limit is not enough.”
The 50mph proposal will be laid out in a consultation document to be published in the early summer.
Edmund King, president of the AA, warned that the move could alienate some motorists. Last year the AA asked 17,481 motorists if the limit on single carriageway roads should be cut to 50mph. Nearly half backed the move but 38% opposed it.
He said: “There are quitea few single carriageway rural roads that are straight and adequately wide, where 60mph – in the right conditions, driving sensibly — is not a problem.
“The danger of the blanket approach is: are you going to then reduce speed limits just for the sake of it where you don’t need to? That’s where you lose the respect or the support of the motorist.
“We all know some rural roads where the 60mph limit is ridiculous, although there are equally others where it suits. So it is a case of getting that balance.”
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What has conveniently been left out of reports on this is how the Average Speed camera network works. Once the nationwide network is in place, this cameras using ANPR technology will give the authorities the ability to track anyones journey anywhere in the country. This is black box vehicle tracking by stealth, giving the Government unprecedented powers of surveillance over the population. There appears to have been no consideration given to using Gatso cameras instead to enforce this, it doesn't need much brainpower to work out why.....
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SPECS Speed Cameras
SPECS average speed camera systems utilise state of the art video system with Automatic Number Plate Reading (ANPR) digital technology. Consisting of a minimum of two cameras each fitted with infra red illuminators fitted on gantries above the road, so they can work day or night. SPECS speed cameras work out the vehicles average speed, given the time it takes to drive between the two camera positions.
SPECS average speed cameras are fitted either at the roadside or in the central reservation (as pictured below) a set distance apart to create a speed controlled zone, or where appropriate, groups of cameras can be linked to create a speed controlled network.
As vehicles pass between the entry and exit camera points their number plates are digitally recorded, whether speeding or not. Then, by ANPR recognition, the images on the video of matching number plates are paired up, and because each image carries a date and time stamp, the computer can then work out your average speed between the cameras. There is no film used for SPECS.
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http://www.speedcamerasuk.com/SPECS.htm
This technology, in addition to speed limit enforcement, is used for Congestion Charge enforcement, and has been used in crime investigation, most notably the investigation into the murder of PC Sharon Beshanivsky in 2005. Its said to be used in Northern Ireland, in the GLUTTON military intelligence network. There can be no doubt this new national 'speed camera' network will be used for much more than detecting speeding motorists.......
Also see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police-enforced_ANPR_in_the_UK
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_plate_recognition |
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Stephen
Moderate Poster
Joined: 03 Jul 2006
Posts: 819
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| Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2009 2:36 pm Post subject: Big Brother is watching: surveillance box to track drivers i |
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Big Brother is watching: surveillance box to track drivers is backed
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/31/surveillance-transport-commun ication-box
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* News
* UK news
* Surveillance
Big Brother is watching: surveillance box to track drivers is backed
• Privacy row brewing over surveillance on the road
• Box could reduce accidents, pollution and congestion
* Paul Lewis in Brussels
* The Guardian, Tuesday 31 March 2009
* Article history
The government is backing a project to install a "communication box" in new cars to track the whereabouts of drivers anywhere in Europe, the Guardian can reveal.
Under the proposals, vehicles will emit a constant "heartbeat" revealing their location, speed and direction of travel. The EU officials behind the plan believe it will significantly reduce road accidents, congestion and carbon emissions. A consortium of manufacturers has indicated that the router device could be installed in all new cars as early as 2013.
However, privacy campaigners warned last night that a European-wide car tracking system would create a system of almost total road surveillance.
Follow that car: 'The British government are the main backers' Link to this audio
Details of the Cooperative Vehicle-Infrastructure Systems (CVIS) project, a £36m EU initiative backed by car manufacturers and the telecoms industry, will be unveiled this year.
But the Guardian has been given unpublished documents detailing the proposed uses for the system. They confirm that it could have profound implications for privacy, enabling cars to be tracked to within a metre - more accurate than current satellite navigation technologies.
The European commission has asked governments to reserve radio frequency on the 5.9 Gigahertz band, essentially setting aside a universal frequency on which CVIS technology will work.
The Department for Transport said there were no current plans to make installation of the technology mandatory. However, those involved in the project describe the UK as one of the main "state backers". Transport for London has also hosted trials of the technology.
The European Data Protection Supervisor will make a formal announcement on the privacy implications of CVIS technology soon. But in a recent speech he said the technology would have "great impact on rights to privacy and data".
Paul Kompfner, who manages CVIS, said governments would have to decide on privacy safeguards. "It is time to start a debate ... so the right legal and privacy framework can be put in place before the technology reaches the market," he said.
The system allows cars to "talk" to one another and the road. A "communication box" behind the dashboard ensures that cars send out "heartbeat" messages every 500 milliseconds through mobile cellular and wireless local area networks, short-range microwave or infrared.
The messages will be picked up by other cars in the vicinity, allowing vehicles to warn each other if they are forced to break hard or swerve to avoid a hazard.
The data is also picked up by detectors at the roadside and mobile phone towers. That enables the road to communicate with cars, allowing for "intelligent" traffic lights to turn green when cars are approaching or gantries on the motorway to announce changes to speed limits.
Data will also be sent to "control centres" that manage traffic, enabling a vastly improved system to monitor and even direct vehicles.
"A traffic controller will know where all vehicles are and even where they are headed," said Kompfner. "That would result in a significant reduction in congestion and replace the need for cameras."
Although the plan is to initially introduce the technology on a voluntary basis, Kompfner conceded that for the system to work it would need widespread uptake. He envisages governments making the technology mandatory for safety reasons.Any system that tracks cars could also be used for speed enforcement or national road tolling.
Roads in the UK are already subject to the closest surveillance of any in the world. Police control a database that is fed information from automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras, and are able to deduce the journeys of as many as 10 million drivers a day. Details are stored for up to five years.
However, the government has been told that ANPR speed camera technology is "inherently limited" with "numerous shortcomings".
Advice to ministers obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act advocates upgrading to a more effective car tracking-based system, similar to CVIS technology, but warns such a system could be seen as a "spy in the cab" and "may be regarded as draconian".
Introducing a more benign technology first, the report by transport consultants argues, would "enable potential adverse public reaction to be better managed".
Simon Davies, director of the watchdog Privacy International, said: "The problem is not what the data tells the state, but what happens with interlocking information it already has. If you correlate car tracking data with mobile phone data, which can also track people, there is the potential for an almost infallible surveillance system."
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Wakeymedia
Validated Poster
Joined: 12 Nov 2008
Posts: 222
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| Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 6:42 pm Post subject: New Surveillance Grid - to be 'in place within months' |
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A surveillance grid, largely unnoticed by the majority of British Citizens, is about to come on line and be fully functioning in a matter of months. It has already been used to suppress peaceful protest.
| Quote: | Camera grid to log number plates
By Richard Bilton
Special correspondent, BBC News
A national network of cameras and computers automatically logging car number plates will be in place within months, the BBC has learned.
Thousands of Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras are already operating on Britain's roads.
Police forces across England, Wales and Scotland will soon be able to share the information on one central computer.
Officers say it is a useful tool in fighting crime, but critics say the network is secretive and unregulated.
Kent's Chief Constable, Michael Fuller, commented: "We've seen an increase of some 40% of arrests since we've been using this technology.
"I'm very confident that we're using it properly and responsibly, and that innocent people have nothing to fear from the way we use it."
A number of local councils are signing up their Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) systems to the ANPR network. As long as the cameras are technically good enough, they can be adapted to take the software.
In towns such as Bradford, Portsmouth and Luton that means greater coverage for the police and more journeys captured and recorded.
John Dean, who is co-ordinating the ANPR network for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: "It's the finest intelligence-led policing tool we've got.
"It covers so many different areas from crime reduction, crime detection to road safety and everything in between."
Marked car
But not everyone thinks it is such a good thing.
John Catt found himself on the wrong side of the ANPR system. He regularly attends anti-war demonstrations outside a factory in Brighton, his home town.
It was at one of these protests that Sussex police put a "marker" on his car. That meant he was added to a "hotlist".
This is a system meant for criminals but John Catt has not been convicted of anything and on a trip to London, the pensioner found himself pulled over by an anti-terror unit.
"I was threatened under the Terrorist Act. I had to answer every question they put to me, and if there were any questions I would refuse to answer, I would be arrested. I thought to myself, what kind of world are we living in?"
Sussex police would not talk about the case.
The police say they do not know how many cameras there are in total, and they say that for operational reasons they will not say where the fixed cameras are positioned.
'Limited resources'
Information Commissioner Richard Thomas, whose job it is to protect personal data, has concerns about the lack of regulation.
He said: "There's very little monitoring. I mean, my office has very limited powers.
"We have very limited resources. We are not actively monitoring that area. You're right to ask the question. No one's checking it at the moment"
The BBC TV series Who's Watching You? asked the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, to comment on the Commissioner's views.
"It's something that we will look at further legislation about where necessary," she said.
"I don't think we should lose sight of the very considerable benefits that this technology also brings us, brings law enforcement."
Recent research by Huddersfield University found that the public seemed to share that view. The study took place in Leeds as the ANPR system was being introduced. The vast majority supported the cameras if they caught law breakers, with only a few mentioning concerns about police surveillance.
The police themselves say they have nothing to hide and would welcome the introduction of a regulatory code. But that seems some way off - and for now this secretive system continues to watch us and continues to grow. |
Link - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/whos_watching_you/8064333.stm
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Thermate911
Angel - now passed away
Joined: 16 Jul 2007
Posts: 1451
Location: UEMS
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| Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 12:34 pm Post subject: |
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Unlike the rest of Europe, UK citizens don't seem to be having too much trouble swallowing Gooogle Street View, either.
http://www.geek.com/articles/news/germany-demands-google-delete-raw-st reet-view-data-20090521/
I dislike blanket slurs in general but 'sheeple' really comes to mind in the presently constituted UK. Or perhaps it's the combination of mind-numbing TV dreck and flouridated water supplies?
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fish5133
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Joined: 13 Sep 2006
Posts: 2568
Location: One breath from Glory
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| Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 2:02 pm Post subject: |
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Ive noticed up here in Merseyside a funny smart car driving around with a periscope type thing with a camera? on top and the cars is marked CCTV. I spoke to the driver of one car and asked him what he was doing (in the nicest possible way-asked if it was google street view). He was actually from NCP (National Car Parks or Traffic warden service) He said he was working for the local council on traffic enforcement.
Freedom of Information enquiry on its way to council just to check it out.
Any one else seen these cars- you couldnt miss it if you did
According to a search on cctv car images these things are operating all over the country
http://search.orange.co.uk/all?q=cctv+cars&brand=ouk&tab=pictures&p=se archbox&pt=todaypictures_hp4_link
As usual i am years behind the times. These cars been around since 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6308835.stm
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TonyGosling
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Joined: 25 Jul 2005
Posts: 18335
Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
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| Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2009 10:01 pm Post subject: |
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Police use CCTV to photograph three billion car numbers plates a year
By Daily Mail Reporter - Last updated at 3:13 PM on 02nd July 2009
You've been framed: Police are using CCTV to photograph three billion car numbers plates a year
Police are using surveillance cameras to photograph three billion car numbers plates a year - the equivalent of 100 pictures every second, new figures have revealed.
The ANPR - automatic number plate recognition - systems are taking images of registration plates at a rate of 350,000 per hour - or around 6,000 per minute.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1197083/Police-use-CCTV-photog raph-billion-car-numbers-plates-year.html
Figures provided by 26 out of 43 forces in England and Wales showed they used the technology to take 1.82 billion photographs of cars during 2008.
The number is likely to be around three billion across all forces - meaning 34 millions registered cars in the country are snapped up to 90 times each a year.
These latest figures - released under the Freedom of Information Act - show the number of images taken with the cameras has risen by up to 1,000 per cent from 2007.
The ANPR cameras are placed on major roads and hidden in strategic locations such as ports, airports and on CCTV cameras in towns.
All information recorded on the cameras is then kept on the police database for a minimum of two years.
Police say are needed for operational reasons such as tracking stolen cars and catching drug dealers and uninsured drivers.
But anti-surveillance campaigners claim the hidden devices are an invasion of privacy and are a sign of a "Big Brother state".
In Devon and Cornwall alone 64 million number plates were read and stored last year after a network of cameras were installed in the area.
Geoffrey Cox, Conservative MP for Torridge and West Devon, said: "It is a surveillance state in which people are being monitored and observed morning, noon and night.
"It is a Big Brother state which assumes and suspects that everyone, at any time, might commit an offence and so gathers evidence against you in advance.
"It is an unsettling symptom of something that has grown up without peoples' recognition, understanding and assent."
But John Dean, national ANPR coordinator, said the technology was "a valuable tool in fighting crime".
He added: "If motorists are abiding the law, they need have no concerns as to where the devices may be sited.
"ANPR systems have been shown to be an extremely powerful policing tool in addressing crime at all levels, including serious and organised crime."
The highest number of records were created by the Metropolitan Police with 342.8 million followed by West Midlands Police with 267.6 million.
The cameras were invented in the UK in 1976 and initially deployed to counter the IRA before being rolled out to police forces in the late 1990s.
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Last edited by TonyGosling on Mon Aug 08, 2011 5:34 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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TonyGosling
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Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
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| Posted: Fri Jun 18, 2010 1:26 am Post subject: |
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June 16, 2010
Police ANPR database contains 7.6 billion car locations and images, the NPIA have acknowledged in a FOIA disclosure to HMP Britain.
The National Police Improvement Agency (NPIA) operate the National ANPR Data Centre (NADC) which stores information from CCTV surveillance cameras. Each time a car passes one of these cameras, the location of the car, the time, an image of the car (and often, its occupants) and the numberplate is stored at the NADC. This data comprises a ‘read’.
There are now 7.6 billion of these reads in the Police database and they are routinely stored for 2 years.
In an internal document [pdf] under the section entitled ‘Proposed Media Lines to Take’, the NPIA
state:
Q. This is just the government spying on the people,isn’t it?
No. This is simply a tool for identifying vehicles where a road traffic offence has been committed or where criminal activity is
suspected
Amusingly, the same documents details how each camera sucks up information on everyone and stores it on a database for two years. Of course, the police aren’t lying: they do only store data on areas where criminal activity suspected. The problem is they suspect every innocent motorist of criminal activity across the whole road network.
http://www.hmpbritain.co.uk/uk-anpr-database-stores-7-6-billion-car-lo cations-and-images/
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TonyGosling
Editor
Joined: 25 Jul 2005
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Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
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| Posted: Mon Aug 08, 2011 5:28 pm Post subject: |
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Automatic numberplate recognition: is it legal?
Posted on August 8, 2011 by Daniel Hamilton - Guest by Keith Mathieson
A report in the Guardian last week reminds readers of the strong likelihood that local police forces have tracked their movements with the use of automatic numberplate recognition (ANPR). According to the article, around 14.5 million numberplate reads (yes, 14.5 million!) are generated every day in the United Kingdom. They are then stored on servers adjoining the police national computer in Hendon, north London. Each record of a car’s movements will be stored for two years – or five years if connected to a crime. The movements are detected by a combination of 5,000 unmarked roadside cameras (not to be confused with the marked yellow boxes containing speed cameras) and mobile cameras inside patrol vehicles.
ANPR helps police forces to tackle crime by enabling it, among other things, to track down uninsured and disqualified drivers and those whose cars may have been used for crime. But the system has the potential to cause unwarranted infringements of personal privacy where, for example, the movements of innocent car owners are retained for no good reason or, through laxity or error, car owners are wrongly ‘hotlisted’ as deserving police attention.
The Guardian article describes the ANPR system in operation in Royston, Hertfordshire, a relatively crime-free spot where ANPR has nonetheless been installed on every road in and out of the town. The article notes that the Royston scheme has been the subject of complaints to the Information Commissioner’s Office by the campaign groups NoCCTV, Privacy International and Big Brother Watch.
In its 2005-2006 report the Chief Surveillance Commissioner expressed concerns that existing legislation did not adequately cater for ANPR, which, he suggested, might in some cases amount to covert surveillance under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. The Government is intending to regulate CCTV and ANPR as part of the reforms to be introduced by the Protection of Freedoms Bill. A previous post found here described the provisions of that bill.
Keith Mathieson is a partner at Reynolds Porter Chamberlain LLP
http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/home/2011/08/automatic-numberplate-r ecognition-is-it-legal.html
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