Ok, this is just downright scary.
From 2006 Britain will be the first country where every journey by every car will be monitored. What on earth is going on back home? Any of my UK readers care to comment?
More than 50 local authorities have signed agreements to allow the police to convert thousands of existing traffic cameras so they can read number plates automatically. The data will then be transmitted to Hendon via a secure police communications network.
The UK seems more and more foreign to me every day…
And there's more
The new national surveillance network for tracking car journeys, which has taken more than 25 years to develop, is only the beginning of plans to monitor the movements of all British citizens. The Home Office Scientific Development Branch in Hertfordshire is already working on ways of automatically recognising human faces by computer, which many people would see as truly introducing the prospect of Orwellian street surveillance, where our every move is recorded and stored by machines.
Even though I rail on the US sometimes, at least there is well-formulated protections in the form of the Constitution and Amendments (which of course are currently under attack). Elsewhere, including in my beloved home country, the governing powers seem to be making it up as they go along. All in the name of the “war on terror”.
Lets just hope that the terrorists haven't basically won by transforming our society into one based on fear. A fear that lets us gladly give those in power the tools to herd and monitor us like sheep.
[Thanks to various, including Joe, for the links.]
