UK: Police ticket man who tried to avoid facial recognition cameras.

a reply to: Breakthestreak

To be honest, your argument is so nuanced I cant argue either way.

The way this is headed is we all have to be exactly the same, is that really the world we want to live in..

originally posted by: LABTECH767
a reply to: gladtobehere

From the personal perspective of the guy I believe he had the right to not have to expose himself to what amount's to an invasion of privacy and a collecting of his facial data onto a database without his consent.

From the police perspective I believe that they too have a point, they have stop and search and anti terror powers and to them this is an extension of that BUT they have overstepped there mark and I suspect this guy has a very viable legal case should he choose to make it, in the private sector we were only allowed to keep footage that contained people's faces for a fixed period of time and then had to destroy that footage but for a police data base this footage may stay on there for years or even decades to come without the person's consent and of course you do own the copyright to your own face so that is also potentially another kind of intrusion.

I am of mixed mind over this, the police have to stay ahead of terrorism and use the tool's they can get there hands' on to fight crime BUT this IS an intrusion of privacy and also a very anti freedom approach to policing that need's to be looked at far more closely by those whom do NOT have a vested interest either way.

If the guy does not have a criminal record and had nothing to hid but chose to not disclose his face then the police REALLY had absolutely no ethical or legal right to fine him especially if he did not resist a stop and search and in this case this amount's to the police going down the old Gestapo route of "Papers Please" were if you did not have your papers you could be arrested and taken back to the old gestapo head quarters, the difference this is more modern and slightly less inconvenient but just because it automates the process does not make it any more ethical or morally right to do to the general public without there express consent.

On balance I feel a court such as the Court of Human right's would almost absolutely definitely side with the guy against the police on this case and so too would most MP's in the house of common's - this actually needs' to be referred to the IPCC and if necessary also to European court's of Justice.

I don't buy the old argument if the guy had nothing to hide, this is about personal data held by people over whom he had no control and he had the right to not disclose his face - though given terrorist offences maybe in this case security over rules personal choice - that is were the argument lies though if we did not have those terrorist activity's then really the police have no business using this technology at all and are merely creating there own replacement as future government's may choose to cut police numbers even more drastically replacing them with automated all the time surveillance system's in a step ever closer to an Orwellian future.

Yup, police have been caught time and time again failing to delete biometric data of innocent people and abusing 'function creep' to impose secret surveillance. Though in this case the guy was allegedly issued a fixed penalty for 'being aggressive and making threats to officers' according to the MET - but they're known for trumping up charges.

The tech is ineffective, has a 96% failure rate, a waste of police resources and invasion of privacy and will hopefully be banned as the trials so far have been a huge failure.

On the plus side on Monday it was ruled that any and all electronic surveillance, domestic or overseas, conducted by Met, SIS, MI5, GCHQ, GS18, British Council etc.. powers are now overseen and over ruled by High Courts so should hopefully be removed.

originally posted by: hopenotfeariswhatweneed
a reply to: Breakthestreak

To be honest, your argument is so nuanced I cant argue either way.

The way this is headed is we all have to be exactly the same, is that really the world we want to live in..

No. It isn’t.
But a man should still not be fined for hiding his face.
I think the way this is headed we won’t have any choice how we can ‘be’ at all.

Oppression creeps in slowly. Small steps.

“Show your face at all times, or we fine you”. How progressive.

a reply to: gladtobehere

This was a trial of the facial recognition system.
Whilst I can see the pro's and con's of both sides of the argument but I tend to lean towards not wanting to see it in general use. Maybe in areas of known high crime rates etc.

I'm sure many criminologists etc are conducting research as we speak.

I firmly believe the police overstepped the mark here.
If only the guy had refused the on the spot fine and taken his day in court then I'm almost certain this would have been thrown out of court.

Too many people agree to on the spot fines, its nothing more than a money making scam.
Wonder where all the money raised goes to?

a reply to: Lysergic

Speaking of faces...

Who is that goofy dude in your avatar????

originally posted by: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

originally posted by: Breakthestreak

originally posted by: gallop

originally posted by: BrianFlanders
Well, I don't exactly like it but I don't see this being an easy thing to stop. They will argue that there's no expectation of privacy in public. Which is an established and entrenched idea.

Hmm, I wonder how many burqa clad women they fine...

Less than the ones in your head?? That’s actually true. The number of ‘burqa clad women’ they will fine is : zero.

Should they be fined?

Fine's, fees, tax's, sanctions and licenses that's what the UK is all about these days.

a reply to: NeoSpace

Funding from central government to many of these agencies etc has been stripped to the bone and they operate on tight and stringent budgets.
The monies raised by the endless stream of on the spot fines, parking and speeding tickets etc go some way to make up the shortfall.
As such the police and jobsworth traffic wardens etc are what can best be described as zealous in their pursuit of such fines.....unfortunately far, far too many people are ignorant as to their rights when being faced with these on the spot fines.

a reply to: bastion

In civilian security we had to delete footage after a fixed period of time, usually our system's automatically deleted it after a month or so in part due to the hard drive only holding so much data but also in order to comply with Data Protection law's - which were an extension of EU policy just worded to the liking of the British Parliament.

Usually we would burn to CD footage from incident's no longer than six month's and if there was no ongoing legal case then destroy the disc in order to be in compliance with Data Protection laws - in an ongoing case however we would keep it until the case was dealt with.

Here the police are obviously NOT complying with the actual law, they are gathering data and it is being fed into a data base of faces to hone there image recognition system's.

We watched private property they are watching public space were the Data Protection Law's are even more severe and yet they are simply not in compliance with them, in essence they are breaking the law one way or another in order to try to bring this technology in, a technology which if they succeed will watch you every day of the week, everywhere you go and form birth to death which while great for criminal detection will obviously also be the ideal tool of a totalitarian state.

The Police do NOT have the legal authority to hold data on private citizen's whom are guilty of no offence longer than is necessary to deal with an ongoing investigation or prosecution, they may rightly hold date on criminal's and genuine suspect's a fair bit longer but have been caught out innumerable time's holding data on SUSPECTS long after an investigation has been carried out and dropped.

When the DATA protection law's first came into force - they have never been properly enforced and are a sham - there was a burning and shredding of document's by police, social services, regional and national government unlike anything seen in Europe since the NAZI's tried to cover there tracks at the end of WW2 but perhaps even more effective than the NAZI's had managed.

My mother Lady Alice Hallworth-Fegan tried and tried to get somewhere - she had been robbed of a huge inheritance and there was involvement by a click of social service workers, corrupt police and judiciary as well as several thieving solicitor's and even though we had and still have evidence of the fraud not only did they refuse to do anything often palming her off saying you need a solicitor only for solicitors to say this is clear criminal theft and a matter for the police but they also destroyed evidence, covered up and buried the theft of Aintree Property's (Aintree Racecourse) from my mother - Lady Elizabeth Tattersall my mother's blood relative had left it, the title and Tattersall's bloodstock's to my mother in trust.

A Journalist whom used to do a lot of story's including documentary's on the royal family investigated and rang my mother about eight month's into his investigation saying "Your trust was simply taken and given to a very powerful family, I am sorry I have to back off I have a wife and children and it is too dangerous for me to investigate it any more", he was very apologetic and my mother believed what he said that he was scared.

I lost my mum about 15 month's ago now, it never get's easier as I had only the one parent but believe me we tried and learned something about information and it's abuse in this country, the elite really can simply steal your life from you and get away with it and the police have and do abuse there position, one young officer (He was one of the junior officers investigating the a case called Operation Cheetah in Liverpool into corrupt land deal's and mainly involved in investigating Derek Hatton whom had once been leader of liverpool council, the only reason Hatton was in the labour party was to help himself to what he could and abuse it for his own end's scum that he is - he almost single handedly destroyed the reputation of Labour in the north west in the 80's and he was absolutely involved in stealing my mother's private property as well, he stole document's belonging too my mother's and which she had never received relating to my mothers trust from the trust and property document's office at Brougham Terrace in Liverpool and also related to this the two museum's on Elizabeth street in Liverpool are also my mothers' houses illegally sold to them and used as museum's by someone that did not even own them as in fact was also most if not all of Derby Square - and we were told that it was all of it) even told my mother he was leaving the police in disgust and going to work as a paramedic in the ambulance service, he was a young Scottish lad whom at the time was working for Merseyside constabulary and he said this "The Higher up's have told us to butt out, I have come to tell you what they are doing to clear my conscience they are simply covering it up and brushing your fraud under the carpet".

Believe me if data is held by these people it WILL be abused.

The other problem ALL the MP's failed us on was the Snoopers Charter.
They promised it would not be abused and now they are abusing it.
en.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: gladtobehere

Truth is the Police are the biggest gang around, a corrupt shower of bastards, and then some.

Lucky it was deemed to be "disorderly behavior" really because next thing you know it might be perverting the course of justice which carries with it a sentence of around 4 years in Gaol to life imprisonment.

Such is the Orwellian world of our own creation no less.

a reply to: LABTECH767

When it comes to the 'nothing to hide' thought..
The problem is, this tech is not perfect. There have been numerous instances of FR not being able to correctly identify people. In the case below, it misidentified members of congress with mug shots..
Amazon FR Whoopsie

Granted, that was a year ago, and may not be the same FR tech that London is using.
Just something to think about.

a reply to: gladtobehere

I mean, what did they expect? They let the government take their guns away. There’s only one reason a government would take your guns away.. And tha’s so they can oppress you with unmitigated authority.

a reply to: Woodcarver

Aye right, we don't want guns, we understand the adverse effects and stupidity of allowing every wannabe Dirty Harry to carry a loaded firearm.

You try threatening those evil government officials/representatives with your gun a see how well that works out for you.

But please keep them to yourselves and away from children at least.

Another reason to NEVER give up any rights for the sake of advertised "safety".

It was all a scam and what's happening now proves it beyond any doubt whatsoever.

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: Woodcarver

Aye right, we don't want guns, we understand the adverse effects and stupidity of allowing every wannabe Dirty Harry to carry a loaded firearm.

You try threatening those evil government officials/representatives with your gun a see how well that works out for you.

But please keep them to yourselves and away from children at least.

Yea, remember that thing we did when Britain tried pushing their bull# on us back then?

You should try some of that.

Don’t get caught with any knives or spoons either.


Oh yea, and don’t forget to look into the camera.

a reply to: LABTECH767

I would like to request that one of the moderator's please delete my above last comment, the facts are accurate but some of the information I would rather keep to myself - it is really my mothers private business and I had no right mentioning it as she would not be pleased with me if she were still here with us - and while strong feeling's about Hatton he was far from the only culprit just one of the higher profile one's - the post was also mostly off topic anyway - sorry for any inconvenience my request may cause to the rest of you.

Thank you to the moderator's for your consideration of my request.

a reply to: gladtobehere

You know you've got a Tory government when .....

Posted by citizen 09746385 / 728.

a reply to: gladtobehere

Absolute rubbish. Fake news as you Yanks like to say.

He was ticketed for verbal abuse to a Police Officer, as confirmed by Cressida Dick and various other Met sources - not for covering his face.

a reply to: gortex

I'm no fan of them either Gortex, perhaps they see turning our nation into even more of an Orwellian surveillance society as both a method to keep we peon's in our place and to police on the cheap.

But they often come a'cropper look at that Grayling idiot's privatization of the prison probation service - pushed through no doubt on behalf of his financial advisers whom wanted to boost the share prices of his investment's in G4S (or the hedge fund's behind them) etc.

He cost us over half a billion - so far - and it is now having to be re-nationalized after a string of serious error's often putting the public at risk and also harmful to the individual's in there care but that is not happening for over another year so make that more like three quarters of a billion pound's.

Since the Tory's got into power first as part of the condem coalition we have seen a catastrophic increase in people living on the street's, fiddling of the figures as to put people off benefit's they actually leave them with nothing to live on using there sanction's policy so these already destitute become homeless and once homeless with no address they conveniently vanish from the government figures.

More people in work, yeah right we believe them the truth is more people in part time job's, on zero hours contracts with no job security at all and having to work harder for less money while the Tory elite are cutting tax bill's for themselves and making this island of ours into there own personal tax haven.

I am absolutely certain the Tory's rigged the election against Milliband - he would have been a very good prime minister but they get what they sow, they have hurt too many people and in typical tyrant style when Labour would have stepped down and called a general election they refuse to do so, the Torys' can't even seem to budge may as she is holding onto power with her claw's and even they hate her now - so typical of tyrant's and unpopular dictator's through the ages.

And as for Labour they had gone too far to the right from there original center left position, Corbyn has redressed that but I still do not like the guy for his talk's with jihadist and other less than palatable people, still he will get my vote as it is that or more years of Tory rape of our country and voting for the Lib's is only going to create yet another condem government with the Tory's in charge yet again.

a reply to: LABTECH767

It's no great surprise given the anti-libertarian we have leading (I use that word loosely) the country , she was an authoritarian Home Secretary and a leopard (print) doesn't change its spots.

This government is probably the worst I've seen in all the years I've been politically aware , incompetent hardly seems adequate to sum the lot of them up , the sooner they're just a bad memory the better for us all mate.

As for the fall in unemployment figures it's strange how that seems to correlate with the rise of people I see living on the streets in my town and yes much of the rise in employment is through part time and zero hour contracts , I'm an agency HGV driver and know the insecurity that brings but it also has its advantages like not being tied to one employer , not sure the two balance themselves out though as the last couple of weeks have been quite and my bank account is feeling the strain.

I doubt I'll be voting in the next election as the choice is unpalatable on both sides ... even with Boris as leader... he's still a Tory Blue Blood.

a reply to: Woodcarver

"Yea, remember that thing we did when Britain tried pushing their bull# on us back then?"

Need to be rather more specific I'm afraid. To which bull crap are you referring, as there are scores of the stuff?

"You should try some of that."

Some of what?

"Oh yea, and don’t forget to look into the camera."

Do you use a motorway/highway perchance? There are cameras all over the place. LoL

We won't be the only ones with those cameras in operation, just a thought, so you remember to look also, but mind and don't point any guns at them as I'm sure it won't work out too well for you, defensive claims or otherwise.

Either way, you can keep your guns and arcane laws which surround such.