The neat thing about these databases is that you’ll never know. Can a lender buy access to them? How about your abusive ex, who knows and/or is a cop? The stalker who somehow knew just where that woman would be when he killed her, was that just bad luck or did he slip someone a few hundred bucks or buy the data from a data broker?
There’s a version of an answer to this where access to search these systems is so tightly logged that we never need to wonder about the answer to these questions. I doubt most of the systems being deployed worldwide are anywhere near that standard.
> Can a lender buy access to them? How about your abusive ex, who knows and/or is a cop? The stalker who somehow knew just where that woman would be when he killed her, was that just bad luck or did he slip someone a few hundred bucks or buy the data from a data broker?
Wow. They sell the data for marketing purposes, and buyers can generate contact lists with demographics for people who frequently travel near their business, or any other location. I dont even know what to type here, I am stunned.
> How about your abusive ex, who knows and/or is a cop?
Like all other PNC access, this gets logged. Police genuinely do get disciplined and fired for abusing the PNC. Random officers cannot randomly look up plates on ANPR: only traffic police or more senior officers can and it, like every other access, gets logged.
The Data Protection Act allows us to find out who has been disciplined, demoted or fired, and the Met for example answer those.
> The stalker who somehow knew just where that woman would be when he killed her, was that just bad luck or did he slip someone a few hundred bucks or buy the data from a data broker?
Data brokers do not get PNC data in the UK. And you're imagining an unnecessarily fantastical, conspiratorial explanation of a stalker who "somehow knew where" some woman would be, when stalkers clearly manage this adequately by, like, ordinary stalking skills (and are rarely unknown to their victims in the first place; they usually have knowledge that was volunteered or was acquired firsthand). Women don't need this imaginary scenario to feel fear: old-fashioned hiding in a car and waiting will do it. More high-tech: hiding an AirTag will do it. Following on Facebook will do it.
Also imagining third party violence that happens due to police data access is irrelevant: police officers themselves commit violence. Probably start there.
> There’s a version of an answer to this where access to search these systems is so tightly logged that we never need to wonder about the answer to these questions. I doubt most of the systems being deployed worldwide are anywhere near that standard.
They are in the UK.
Are face recognition cameras a bad thing in the hands of the UK police? Probably sometimes yes. But these conspiratorial hypotheses don't need airing.
FWIW, I still think the US perception of the UK "surveillance state" is largely misplaced and is based on poor journalism about simple numbers of cameras that has never been adequately put into context.
These facial recognition cameras cannot be instantly used on some big national police surveillance mechanism because in essence no such system exists: the vast majority of CCTV cameras in the UK are not operated by police at all.
Most cameras are operated by local and regional councils (access for which the police would need to issue warrants or make detailed subject/time requests) or private businesses (ditto).
And most of the huge number of cameras the police imagine aren't connected to anything more complex than Ring. Even with Ring footage, British police find that if they want to use doorbell camera footage, it is faster to arrange a time to visit the owner or at best knock on the door of the householder and ask for it to be emailed or copied to an SD card. They do not have broad instant access, much less broad, instant, warrantless access.
The biggest risk is not outright abuse but malfeasance/misfeasance overuse, much more dull-witted, instant and humdrum: for example some of the operators perceive the desire not to walk past one of them to be evidence of criminal intent, and they use that as a justification for a stop and search.
In the U.S., law enforcement misusing their access to existing surveillance technologies is already reality. Enlarging the capabilities they have access to, when they're proven to misuse what they have, isn't ideal.
US law enforcement misuses literally everything they can. If it exists and they have access to it, it will be misused. Be it guns, SUVs, police cameras, whatever. It's a systemic problem with how we handle policing.
> FWIW, I still think the US perception of the UK "surveillance state" is largely misplaced and is based on poor journalism about simple numbers of cameras that has never been adequately put into context.
Whilst the UK is not a «surveillance state» in the authoritarian sense, and they were certainly not the ones who invented CCTV, we must credit the British for pioneering the concept of ubiquitous CCTV as a tool of urban surveillance, which was complemented by a long-standing tradition of overzealous law enforcement – a legacy with undeniably robust historical roots. It is irrefutable that the UK was an early adopter of CCTV for security and policing purposes[0], much to the bemusement of the guests of Her Late Majesty and His Majesty now.
The British have certainly been instrumental – if not bestowing or spreading it (which is partially true, at least in the case of Australia and New Zealand), then at least influencing – in the widespread adoption of CCTV as a tool for urban surveillance in a large number of Western countries.
[0] One of the first significant deployments in Britain occurred in 1960, when temporary CCTV cameras were used to monitor the crowds at Trafalgar Square during a visit by the Thai royal family – https://www.farsight.co.uk/about-us/history/
> [0] One of the first significant deployments in Britain occurred in 1960, when temporary CCTV cameras were used to monitor the crowds at Trafalgar Square during a visit by the Thai royal family – https://www.farsight.co.uk/about-us/history/
Not sure I will take at face value the idea that the Thai royal family were shocked and surprised at overpolicing of potential protestors and that the Thai embassy advance teams had nothing to do with that.
But being sacked as a police officer in the UK is a fairly big deal. There's no Fraternal Order of Police to ease you into a cushy security job, and there's no macho culture of celebrating corrupt police. Being charged for misusing one's position would be pretty devastating. Policing in the UK is "by consent" and people don't take too kindly to stuff like this.
Religious registries were a harmless little census thing in Germany... well until 1933 at least. Once the system is in place and the data collected you need very strong institutions to protect the people
The 23 and me fuck up is also a good example, data is forever, laws and morales are very temporary
I don’t know for sure since we don’t know who has access to that data, but if I were an auto insurance company, I would love to know which of my customers tend to go out in inclement weather, or after midnight when the roads are statistically more dangerous.
Took me less than a minute to think of that example. I’m sure there’s more ways that information could be used against my interests.
But you don't need access to ANPR for this, particularly.
You just ask the customer to tell you, perhaps with one of those driving monitoring apps/devices that people use to lower premiums. Pretty commonplace now.
FWIW, having worked on car insurance applications, most insurance companies do not much care about microtargeting consumers in this way. Beyond looking at their claims history and the kind of car they are driving, it is a large-scale numbers game, and the way you know which customers, for example, tend to go out more at night when it is dangerous is to look at their age (more likely very young) and gender (more likely male). And then you just make them all pay more. There's no particular reason to get any more forensic than that; it's more costly and it probably doesn't deliver much extra value.
And if young drivers complain, "hey, I am an excellent safe driver, I've done my advanced test, and I don't take risks", you say: "Great. Use one of our driving monitoring apps or devices, prove it and we'll happily give you lower premiums!"
I could tell you a couple of horror stories I am not going to repeat on the internet because they are old news now and times have changed, but I really must say, it's not necessary to imagine what government data could be used for in the hands of insurance companies: it's much more likely that insurance companies will simply incentivise customers to hand over the data. People who want lower premiums will jump through all sorts of hoops to get them.
It goes against the principle of living in a democracy. The government can only use it in ways that are detrimental to a fair and just society. It's assuming everyone is a criminal rather than being innocent until you do a crime.
Pretend you are in op sec for personal information and you'll quickly come up with a dozen examples. Ranging from individuals abusing access for nefarious reasons [1], institutions using it to reward hack kpis to what's happening in America with illegal ICE arrests.
