Internet Eyes

A year ago this was just a maybe, now internet eyes is a reality. In fact, the police were saying that they are now not going to employ people directly, but you have to serve as a community support officer for a couple of years - putting that you won £10,000 on internet eyes is sure to bolster your job prospects.

I know time and time again we get the Police State type threads, but we are sleepwalking into a police state(I also think sleepsprinting more accurate), especially since most people have a GPS tracker on their phone. All that is left is a website that tracks users by location, then when a crime occurs or is occurring you get a list of all the people within a certain vicinity. I can see it already, people summoned to court automatically, needing to prove themselves innocent, instead of the other way around.....sheesh!

or with more data available, there are more chances to prove your innocence. The key to getting the duke rape case charges dismissed and disproven were the recordings made at the ATM showing one of the accused far from the location the government prosecutor said he was at.

I don't disagree, it's just such a high price to pay for society that is 99% honest hardworking and has no involvement in crime.

The problem with relying on technology is that it is dependant on programmers mostly, and I have met people that can hack or break into anything. It's just a matter of time before someone finds a way of diverting your phone signal saying you were in locationx when your were in y. Technology is so easy to manipulate.

Like 99% of all statistics, you just made that one up on the spot. And I call BS. 99% of people are not "honest hardworking and has no involvement in crime." Depending on how you define crime, I'd say 99% of people have committed a crime. Who here can claim they've never gotten a traffic ticket? I know, you'll argue that speeding hardly qualifies as a crime, but since the article was specifically talking about such petty offenses I think it has to be considered. As for honest, it's been proven time and again that pretty much 100% of us lie. And for hardworking, I can look around and tell you that 99% is laughable .

Now, that said, I agree that CCTV and Internet Eyes are a slippery slope at a frightening angle.

I've become a fan of David Brin and will buy this book next:

The Transparent Society

The trick is to have eyes pointing in both directions.

Amazon:

David Brin takes some of our worst notions about threats to privacy and sets
them on their ears. According to Brin, there is no turning back the growth of
public observation and inevitable loss of privacy--at least outside of our own
homes. Too many of our transactions are already monitored: Brin asserts that
cameras used to observe and reduce crime in public areas have been successful
and are on the rise. There's even talk of bringing in microphones to augment the
cameras. Brin has no doubt that it's only a matter of time before they're
installed in numbers to cover every urban area in every developed nation.

While this has the makings for an Orwellian nightmare, Brin argues that we
can choose to make the same scenario a setting for even greater freedom. The
determining factor is whether the power of observation and surveillance is held
only by the police and the powerful or is shared by us all. In the latter case,
Brin argues that people will have nothing to fear from the watchers because
everyone will be watching each other. The cameras would become a public resource
to assure that no mugger is hiding around the corner, our children are playing
safely in the park, and police will not abuse their power.

No simplistic Utopian, Brin also acknowledges the many dangers on the way. He
discusses how open access to information can either threaten or enhance freedom.
It is one thing, for example, to make the entire outdoors public and another
thing to allow the cameras and microphones to snoop into our homes. He therefore
spends a lot of pages examining what steps are required to assure that a
transparent society evolves in a manner that enhances rather than restricts
freedom. This is a challenging view of tomorrow and an exhilarating read for
those who don't mind challenges to even the most well-entrenched cultural
assumptions. --Elizabeth Lewis

I love the way Brin thinks. He turns weakness into strength. Practically speaking
though, that is just how things could be - not how they are.

@SteveRichter:

4 hours ago,SteveRichter wrote

or with more data available, there are more chances to prove your innocence. The key to getting the duke rape case charges dismissed and disproven were the recordings made at the ATM showing one of the accused far from the location the government prosecutor said he was at.

So you're saying we should live in a society where you are considered guilty until you can prove that you're innocent?

The burden of proof is on the prosecution for a very good reason.

@vesuvius: Isn't CCTV covered by the data protection act, anyway? (hence all those ironic "warning, concealed cctv" signs)

In which case how is make videos of (potentially) me available to all comers online, without my permision, not a flagrant breach of said law?

@GoddersUK:I am not a solicitor, but I have worked in the Security sector, including CCTV companies, and people get up to all sorts. You have to be prepared to see people being stabbed or raped, frequently you find people shagging (translates to "at it like rabbits") in places you would never imagine.

I am not so sure people realise just how powerful, the ability to monitor and more importantly control people by monitoring them is. Yes people will use it as an instrument for crime detection, but incidents like thisgay student being outed will only increase. the people guilty of outing him thought it funny and only afterwards found that thery would be looking at jail and that was only because he killed himself. Had that not happened, then he would have just had to endure the embarrasment and humiliation.

@exoteric: This all really follows on fromBrave New World by Aldous Huxley. On the flip side of the coin are going to be 'all the good people', with their boring lives, that actually pay for their music and films and books and council tax and so on. I'm not sure people realise just how boring life has a potential to become. You are going to have a world filled with zombies inputting information and learning from the internet and paying their bills on time and consuming goods eitherconspicuously or invidiously. In their free time they can play some virtual games, and that's about it.

That book really opens you eyes into seeing what people want, and what actually happens when people do when they get what they want.

Hang on a minute. They want people to pay for the opportunity to do the (rather tedious) job of a CCTV operator, on the off chance they might possibly win a small amount of money should they happen to be the person who spots something.

I can't help but feel there's not much to worry about. Not because the original idea wasn't troubling, but because it's now so watered down I doubt there are going to be many taking up the offer.

I think it will work a lot smarter than that.

Lets say a shop closed after trading 9-5 on Monday Some Day In The Pastlike yesterday and the takings are really down, or there were a few incidents and they were understaffed. Well obviously there is going to be hours of video from a place with numerous cameras so at that moment, you outsource the work. The people will be drawn because it is "quite likely" they will get some catch (or was thatcash)