Sheffield Council to decide the fate of your ANPR data

[prettygood]

Prettygood, you should rename yourself pretty paranoid!

 

You can play the paranoid card if you wish, but I've heard it all before.

 

The system can and does benefit the motorist by helping the highway authorities to monitor traffic movement. This can then be used to model future traffic flows.

 

It has been going on for years in different forms and using differing methods but I know in your eyes this doesn't make it right.

 

Given that the local authorities can't even keep the roads free of potholes, I'm very sceptical of their ability to create accurate traffic flow models, especially given the huge amount of data than an ANPR camera network would provide. Such a model would be a highly complex nonlinear model that would keep a group of mathematicians busy for a long time. Human behaviour is not deterministic, despite what devout bureaucrats may believe.

 

Such a predictive system would cost millions to create and would be commissioned to a private-sector IT company who would create poor software that didn't do what was asked and went massively over budget. This always happens with large-scale IT projects commissioned by central or local governments. I don't want my taxes wasted in such a way.

 

The Police use of ANPR gets illegal drivers off the road. This can only be a good thing.

 

If police ANPR cameras are only there to catch illegal drivers, why is it necessary to store journey data at all? Let's take an example of John Smith from Sheffield who is driving round the ring road. His car is caught by an ANPR camera and then checked against the database. The database returns with the information that the car is properly registered, has valid insurance and has not been reported as stolen.

 

Given this, why is it necessary to store John Smith's journey data at all? The police currently store this data for everyone for two years and they're proposing increasing it to five. If the car didn't have insurance or was stolen then the police could be immediately alerted, but the database has confirmed that this isn't the case. Why can't John Smith's record therefore be deleted immediately so there is no record that he was ever there?

 

Its similar to CCTV, it may be seen as an invasion of privacy, big brother etc.. but it does reduce crime and can help identify and lead to the detention of offenders.

 

There's a huge difference between targetted surveillance and mass surveillance. Targetted surveillance involves the police receiving evidence that someone is committing a crime, then using surveillance to catch them at it or gain evidence for a conviction. I've got no problem with this.

 

Mass surveillance on the other hand involves watching everyone just on the off-chance that they commit a crime. It's totally indiscriminate and I find it offensive. I presume that you haven't engaged in any drive-by shootings or ram raids recently so why do your journey details need storing? Assuming that you don't have any convictions for smuggling huge blocks of crack from continental Europe, I'm prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt that you won't do so tomorrow, the day after that or the day after that. I don't see why granting this benefit of the doubt to every other law-abiding taxpayer is so much to ask.

[Planner1]

The point I was making is that the authorities are not entitled to collect ANPR data because there is no law concerning ANPR. It's regulation by fiat and would be more at home in some tinpot dictatorship, not the mother of all democracies. ANPR is illegitimate because it wasn't introduced under any law and is therefore illegal. If an angry citizen were to start smashing up ANPR cameras (which I'm not advocating of course), they'd be well within their rights because the cameras shouldn't be there in the first place. It'd be the equivalent of me breaking down a section of a neighbour's fence that'd been built one metre over on my property.

 

The point is that the law makers clearly do not see any reason to regulate the use of ANPR, so there is no need for any law. Things are illegal if they are contrary to regulations. If no regulation exists, it's clearly legal until otherwise regulated.

 

Councils, the Police and other organisations are using ANPR, because it exists, it works and it's permissable in law.

[Planner1]

Just because something can be done doesn't mean that it should be done. This is something that bureaucrats such as yourself can never seem to grasp.

 

The ethics of whether something should be done in this context is a matter for politicians. Everything we in Local Government do has to be approved by politicians. The SYITS ANPR system was approved by the politicians in all the South Yorkshire Councils, so it's been through the democratic process.

[Gormenghast]

The ethics of whether something should be done in this context is a matter for politicians. Everything we in Local Government do has to be approved by politicians. The SYITS ANPR system was approved by the politicians in all the South Yorkshire Councils, so it's been through the democratic process.

 

Hello P1.

 

As you say. it's been through the democratic process, but only the one that involves local council politiicans. Where was I asked to vote on this in the local elections?

 

I don't recall any manifesto commitment to do this dropping through my door.

[sccsux]

Well, as you mentioned earlier, the authorities are entitled to gather that information because the law allows them to.

 

You sound like an MP trying to justify his/her expenses claims.

 

"The rules allow it, so we'll do it" mentality.

 

Just 'cause you can do something, doesn't mean you should do it.

[sccsux]

The ethics of whether something should be done in this context is a matter for politicians. Everything we in Local Government do has to be approved by politicians.

 

And now the "I'm only following orders" mentality.

 

You and your cronies are a total joke. Get a spine and do the job you're being paid to do, not be some servile robot to central government!

[sccsux]

I don't recall any manifesto commitment to do this dropping through my door.

 

Time to make the money grabbing fools in WM work for their money.

 

Lobby your (creatively accountable) MP to raise this issue in Parliment. If they see enough support they will do so, knowing full well their jobs could be on the line next year.

 

Incompetent baboons!

[prettygood]

The point is that the law makers clearly do not see any reason to regulate the use of ANPR, so there is no need for any law. Things are illegal if they are contrary to regulations. If no regulation exists, it's clearly legal until otherwise regulated.

 

Councils, the Police and other organisations are using ANPR, because it exists, it works and it's permissable in law.

 

When describing what's illegal and what's permissible, an important distinction needs to be made between the citizen and the state. For the citizen, the argument that you make is correct. Anything that's not explicitly forbidden under law is legal. It's not illegal for me to light my own farts or stop up until 4am watching internet porn so I'm perfectly entitled to do so if I choose.

 

For the state, however, the inverse should be true. The state should be given a set of things that they are allowed to do by law, then they're not allowed to do anything else outside of that. If the set of laws is insufficient then the government of the day should go before parliament and justify why they need more powers. If legislation passes for these powers then the state can be granted them. As the state is funded from taxpayers' money and delegated the responsibility of managing society, it should be limited by a well-defined set of powers that it is entitled to have. The inherent corrupting power of authority means that any state should always be restricted in the things that it can do. That's a necessary safeguard in any democracy.

 

As an autonomous citizen I should be given a list of things that I cannot do. In your role as a state-funded bureaucrat you should be given a list of things that you can do. The two situations are not the same thing.

[Planner1]

Hello P1.

 

As you say. it's been through the democratic process, but only the one that involves local council politiicans. Where was I asked to vote on this in the local elections?

 

I don't recall any manifesto commitment to do this dropping through my door.

Is it reasonable to expect politicians to cover every aspect of every part of the Council's responsibility in an election manifesto? I think not, it's impossible.

 

You have to trust that they will represent what they feel is the view of their electorate.

[Planner1]

And now the "I'm only following orders" mentality.

 

You and your cronies are a total joke. Get a spine and do the job you're being paid to do, not be some servile robot to central government!

 

Fine words, but an unrealistic standpoint. We have to work within the frameworks provided by central government, they hold the purse strings, so naturally, they expect to set the agenda.

 

There's no point in me or my colleagues bringing forward policies and programmes which have no chance whatsoever of being adopted or implemented. That would be a waste of the taxpayers money.