Comments on: The Government wants to track our cars… but should we care?

By: George Orwell

George Orwell — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 13:09:40 +0000

Our surveillance society is largely about collecting information that can be sold, I don’t see this as being any different, except tracking a persons movements would have myriad uses in terms of marketing. Imagine how useful an urban populations movements would be in determining where to place an out of town shopping and “leisure” park.

George Orwell was largely right, perhaps the current dictatorship is more benign, and he totally missed the influence of capitalism in our society. Anyway 1984 isn’t a warning it’s conditioning for our society, why else teach it in schools.

By: Dave J

Dave J — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 21:25:01 +0000

There are several variants on this which are more intelligent : I consider allowing the police to chase someone through a built up area untill the adrenalin drives the (minor or major offender) to drive shall we say “wrecklessly”, as the same as launching an unguided non-explosive ground hugging missile with no explosive charge attached . It should not be allowed. So why not have an “off switch” of sorts in each vehicle, with a remote control of course. Then why are vehicles built to go above the European speed limit? what is this for? The electronics exists to put this right also. Personally I do not consider speeding on open empty roads as an offence, an offence is against somebody, not a virtual rule resulting in a stealth tax. I like to spend 100% of my time looking around outside for things “in the way” so as to drive safely and efficiently, I consider looking down at the speedo to be an offence to any outside public. Finally the above functions can generally be achieved anonymously, there is no need for anyone to know which car is where, even then it does not show who is inside. The government and car industry are as corrupt as they can get away with. 2 legs good 4 wheels bad.

By: Mike Chenery

Mike Chenery — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:30:24 +0000

And so George Orwell, although late in his timing for 1984, was right. They will be watching us in our living rooms next, with the Thought Police watching to see what we are eating and what time we go to bed, perhaps monitoring us whilst we sleep (just to make sure we are not contemplating a rebellion)

By: G Lewis

G Lewis — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 08:30:34 +0000

What worries most of the indigenous population of the UK is that, under the ridiculous Human Rights laws, no person can be denied a work position on the grounds of gender, age, race, religion, etc. As a result, it is a simple matter for anyone devious enough to conceal their true hatred of our way of life – and there are plenty of them now being trained abroad on how to kill us – to secure a job in charge of these new databases and to use the knowledge to further their stated aims.

By: Charles Marsh

Charles Marsh — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 14:52:17 +0000

Jeremy Hower said, “Having one of the greatest concentrations of CCTV in the western world does not make us safer than other European countries that have virtually no CCTV.”

It was quite bizarre seeing some of the media just prior to the start of the G20 summit. They were letting the authorities remind us just how much CCTV there is in London. A psychological deterrent, supposedly; propaganda, almost; menacing, certainly, in the same way those government car tax ads are. In one piece, this was balanced by hearing from a protester. He said that if stuff got smashed up, it would be out of ideology. Like cameras are going to stop ideology. If the police themselves thought CCTV made any difference, they wouldn’t have felt the need to be able to call on up to 40,000 officers, in case of trouble.

By: Steve Cassidy

Steve Cassidy — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 13:04:46 +0000

Hear hear Jeremy. The promises made on the money spent so far do not actually pan out: having millions of cameras does not provably inhibit a nuclear explosion, nor does it stop pickpocketing or drug dealing – all issues affecting the City of London and none fixed by technology. I believe some influential government bodies have begun to look at this sort of irrationality, in particular the National Audit Office. Delivering something as abstract as a “secure person-month” by instrumenting everything in sight is a very poor return on the scale of investment we are being invited to consider.

By: Jeremy Hower

Jeremy Hower — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 10:02:36 +0000

Tim, the idea of Big Brother is slowly coming to fruition in this country. Whether you think you are rather dull is irrelevant when seen in the context of the surveillance society. The important point is the disproportiontae and unjust use of mass surveillance and other powers and how this will create a situation whereby the subjects are in a much weaker position viz authorities than they have been in modern times.

What you may regard as dull could be something very interesting to those with vested interests and I’m not just talking about governments. These systems are bound to be used by people for other purposes for which they were intended (function creep). There are so many examples from congestion charging CCTV being used for crime to surveillance of school children to make sure they are in the right catchment area.

We are increasingly being asked to sacrifice what little privacy we have left in order to ‘make us safer’. If nothing else common sense will tell you that we are not a safer society for our reliance on Big Brother style policies. Having one of the greatest concentrations of CCTV in the western world does not make us safer than other European countries that have virtually no CCTV.

Spooky McSpook, Stating that tracking already happens is not a valid excuse. For a start, many of the databases we have could be illegal according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Your position is akin to saying that because you have suffered an injustice it doesn’t matter that the injustice keeps on happening because it is only a ‘little step’ foward. Why not tackle the fact that it is an injustice in the first place? Seems like an odd sentiment to me.

We need to debate seriously what effect the disproportionate and unjust use of mass surveillance is having on this country before things like biometric state profiles (ID cards), travel databases and unlimited data sharing become entrenched.

By: Charles Marsh

Charles Marsh — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 03:02:46 +0000

Steve Cassidy said, “Letting a government know where you are is not the problem.”

What’s the Government made of? Ministers, who make the decisions, and civil servants, who provide the advice and carry out those decisions. The Government is fine, apart from all the people in it.

There’s a key sentence in the recent Database State report from the Rowntree Trust. “Experience teaches that a system can have security, or functionality, or scale, and with good design it may even have any two of these; but it is not feasible to achieve all three.” Being able to find out where any person’s vehicle has ever been is very functional. If government wants to create a central system that applies to all vehicles, that will make it large scale. Therefore, it won’t be secure. It’s not about the technology being unavailable today. It’s about basic human frailties.

(Spain is probably a better example than Russia. Spain transitioned from dictatorship to democracy in 1978. Russia isn’t in the EU and has never been a democracy as you or I would understand the word.)

By: Dick Hamilton

Dick Hamilton — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 01:36:15 +0000

Buster,

“Bus’s / Taxi’s / Van’s / Lorry’s / motorbikes / ” ?

Why not motorbike’s?

Who didn’t teach you what an apostrophe is for, how to use one, and how to construct a plural? (so I can get them sacked).

By: Buster

Buster — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 19:11:09 +0000

No this will not reduce deaths on the roads. Speeding up the road traffic will encourage more people to drive at busy times, so their will be more traffic on our roads and a higher death toll.

“traffic lights could automatically change as you approached them”. It has been proven that traffic moves more effectively and safer with out any traffic lights. When a set of traffic lights are out of order, traffic carefully filters through junctions in far larger number per hour.
That’s why ‘Shared Space principles’ are so so effective.

“install a ‘communication box’ in new cars”, Are other Non-car traffic going to be exempt? Or will Bus’s / Taxi’s / Van’s / Lorry’s / motorbikes / emergency services be included? This article refers to ‘Cars’ five times and not ‘vehicles’. Maybe just sloppy journalism?

and but a tracking device would enable the police to find ‘hit & run’ v very easily.