:: GussetBLOG ::

:: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 ::

Trainspotter sparks terror alert

Trainspotter sparks terror alert

Police officer caught taking pictures

Labels: ID, Law, Photography

:: Dan 26.8.09 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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A national network of cameras and computers automatically logging car number plates will be in place within months, the BBC has learned.

Thousands of Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras are already operating on Britain's roads. Police forces across England, Wales and Scotland will soon be able to share the information on one central computer.

John Catt found himself on the wrong side of the ANPR system. He regularly attends anti-war demonstrations outside a factory in Brighton, his home town.

It was at one of these protests that Sussex police put a "marker" on his car. That meant he was added to a "hotlist".

This is a system meant for criminals but John Catt has not been convicted of anything and on a trip to London, the pensioner found himself pulled over by an anti-terror unit.

"I was threatened under the Terrorist Act. I had to answer every question they put to me, and if there were any questions I would refuse to answer, I would be arrested. I thought to myself, what kind of world are we living in?"

Sussex police would not talk about the case.

The police say they do not know how many cameras there are in total, and they say that for operational reasons they will not say where the fixed cameras are positioned.

The police themselves say they have nothing to hide and would welcome the introduction of a regulatory code. But that seems some way off - and for now this secretive system continues to watch us and continues to grow.

It's nice that the Police acknowledge the need for regulation but shouldn't that be in place BEFORE the system goes live, not after it goes wrong?

Labels: CCTV, ID, Politics, Secuirty

:: Dan 26.5.09 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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I'm undecided about the DNA database. Some human rights groups (and EU law) say it an erosion of civil liberties, that your DNA is private. Is it? I'm struggling to think of ways that could be abused.

Anyway, Channel 4 News have created a map showing how many samples are held by each police force in the UK. (Some are estimates.)

What Strasbourg ruling means for UK
More from The Guardian.

Labels: ID, Liberty, Maps, Privacy

:: Dan 5.12.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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Bristol Indymedia Film Night: Taking Liberties, Introduced by Bristol No2ID
Monday 1st December 2008 8pm @ Cube Cinema, Stokes Croft, Bristol.
Entry £3/£4 (but nobody refused entry for a lack of funds.)

Taking Liberties is BAFTA nominated director Chris Atkins's film that uncovers the stories the government don't want you to hear so ridiculous you will laugh, so ultimately terrifying you will want to take action. Teenage sisters detained for 36 hours for a peaceful protest; an RAF war veteran arrested for wearing an anti-Bush and Blair T-shirt; an innocent man shot in a police raid; and a man held under house arrest for two years, after being found innocent in court. Law-abiding citizens being punished for ordinary activities, after a decade of dangerous laws have demolished the rights which we fought for over centuries.

The film will be introduced by by Dave Gould of the Bristol No2ID campaign.

www.noliberties.com
www.bristol.indymedia.org
www.bristol-no2id.org.uk

Map: Cube Cinema: Dove St South (off Kings Square), Bristol

Labels: Film, ID, Politics

:: Dan 15.11.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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Filmed in Ashton Court, Bristol. Ah, I remember those tracks!
By Tom Mansfield

Jesus, how to give away too much personal information on the net! He really needs to edit that. Emailed.

Labels: Bike, Bristol, Film, ID, Video

:: Dan 4.7.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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radio for back up
Originally uploaded by i didn't mean to go to Stoke.

"My friend and I were photographing in the town. I spotted a man being detained by this security guard and a policeman, some kind of altercation was going on, i looked through my zoom lens to see what was happening and then moved on.

"Moments later as i walked away this goon jumped in front of me and demanded to know what i was doing. i explained that i was taking photos and it was my legal right to do so, he tried to stop me by shoulder charging me, my friend started taking photos of this, he then tried to detain us both. I refused to stand still so he grabbed my jacket and said i was breaking the law. Quickly a woman and a guy wearing BARGAIN MADNESS shirts joined in the melee and forcibly grabbed my friend and held him against his will. We were both informed that street photography was illegal in the town.
Two security guards from the nearby shopping center THE MALL came running over, we were surrounded by six hostile and aggressive security guards. They then said photographing shops was illegal and this was private land. I was angry at being grabbed by this man so i pushed him away, one of the men wearing a BARGAIN MADNESS shirt twisted my arm violently behind my back, i winced in pain and could hardly breathe in agony.
A policewomen was radioed and came over to question the two suspects ( the total detaining us had risen to seven, a large crowd had now gathered)
The detaining guard released me, i asked the policewoman if my friend and i could be taken away from the six guards, she motioned us to a nearby seat and told all the security people to go. She took our details, name, address, date of birth etc. She wanted to check my camera saying it was unlawful to photograph people in public, i told her this was rubbish. we agreed to come with her and we sat in the back of a police car, she radioed back to the station to check our details, i explained to her the law regarding photography and handed over a MOO card, i asked to take her picture and she said no. We were free to go with no charge. I may press charges for unlawful detention and physical assault by the security guards, watch this space.

"luckily my friend videoed some of this so it can be used in evidence.

"Here it is"

Labels: Flickr, ID, Photography, Secuirty

:: Dan 24.4.08 [Arc] [1 comments] ::
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Americans seek international database to carry iris, palm and finger prints



"Although each participating country would manage and secure its own data, the sharing of personal data between countries is becoming an increasingly controversial area of police practice. There is political concern at Westminster about the public transparency of such cooperation."

Labels: ID, News, Politics

:: Dan 15.1.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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Open ID update: Facebook and Google anounce that they are joining the Data Portability Workgroup

Labels: facebook, Google, ID, OpenID, SocialNetworking

:: Dan 9.1.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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"TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson has lost money after publishing his bank details in his newspaper column. The Top Gear host revealed his account numbers after rubbishing the furore over the loss of 25 million people's personal details on two computer discs. He wanted to prove the story was a fuss about nothing. Clarkson published details of his Barclays account in the Sun newspaper, including his account number and sort code. He even told people how to find out his address. "All you'll be able to do with them is put money into my account. Not take it out. Honestly, I've never known such a palaver about nothing," he told readers. Clarkson admitted he was "wrong" after he discovered a reader had used the details to create a £500 direct debit to the charity Diabetes UK."

Labels: ID, News

:: Dan 7.1.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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This is interesting. I wrote a post about the need for an open system and API for social networking back in March (see point 4) and guessed that someone must be working on it somewhere. It seems [via dev/null] that LiveJournal founder Brad Fitzpatrick is on the case, with OpenID. Although there are obvious privacy concerns about what information is held about you and where, especially if you actively wanted to keep different groups of friends linked to different accounts / aliases. Hopefully a robust set of rules can be written into it that might help to control aggregation sites like Spock and PeekYou, as Grom criticised last week. The biggest issue I have with these is the lack of control they give you over what information they collect about you. For example, PeekYou has scrapped my Blogger, LinkedIn and Flickr profiles together, which I'm not entirely happy about but can live with, somehow has failed to find my Facebook or MySpace, and has linked the wrong eBay account. Now, I'm not jumping to add the missing data, but I would obviously like to be able to remove the incorrect data. Having said that, there are data uses I wouldn't mind, especially having copied and pasted the same basic profile information into Blogger, Flickr, MySpace and Facebook, and rarely editing any of them, a simple "would you allow us to copy data from xx" dialogue during sign-up and one central point where changes cascade down would be very handy. But the user must have control over what data is taken from where.

Here's the link to dev/null's post again. I recommend reading the whole post if you skipped past the link previously.

Labels: Blogger, facebook, Flickr, FOSS, ID, myspace, OpenID, SocialNetworking

:: Dan 21.8.07 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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The Big Opt Out » About the campaign

The NHS Confidentiality campaign was set up to protect patient confidentiality and to provide a focus for patient-led opposition the government’s NHS Care Records System. This system is designed to be a huge national database of patient medical records and personal information (sometimes referred to as the NHS ’spine’) with no opt-out mechanism for patients at all. It is being rolled out during 2007, and is objectionable for many of the same reasons as the government’s proposed ID database.

YOUR PRIVACY

Your medical confidentiality is at risk from this new database, as over a million NHS employees and central government bureaucrats will have access to not only your medical records but also your demographic details—name, address, NHS Number, GP details, phone number (even if it’s ex-directory) and mobile number.

There is no opt out whatsoever for your demographic details. You can only have them hidden in special circumstances if the police or social services request it—if, for example, you are a celebrity or on a witness protection scheme. Many public and private sector workers will otherwise have access to your address and phone number, from social workers to pharmacists.

You will eventually be allowed to ‘lock down’ some of your medical details (though the security mechanisms haven’t been built yet). But although you can keep some of your medical details confidential from some of the doctors involved in your care, they can override this if they think it’s necessary, and there is no way for you to keep your information confidential from civil servants. You will no longer be able to attend any Sexual Health or GUM (Genito-Urinary Medicine) Clinic anonymously as all these details will also be held on this national database, alongside your medical records. For the first time everyone’s most up-to-date and confidential details are to be held on one massive database.

Click here for more information, here for the latest news, and here to find out what you can do about it.

Labels: ID

:: Dan 16.7.07 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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Spain introduces electronic tagging system to track post

A genuinely useful application of RFID! Who'd have thought?
I thought about sending Grom a tracked postcard while I was in Spain but the system is only in use on internal mail at the moment.

Very good post from Grom on ID here.

Labels: ID, RFID

:: Dan 29.3.07 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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