Spy Blog - SpyBlog.org.uk

Just in case you thought that Spy Blog has not tried the available, alleged "checks and balances" which are supposed to prevent the disproportionate abuse of our privacy and freedoms, you might be interested in our brief correspondence with the Office of the Surveillance Commissioners, regarding the function creep of what were supposed to have been "save the environment" schemes: the London Congestion Charge and the London Low Emission Zone, but which have now mutated into a secretive, unaccountable, mass surveillance snooping scheme.

Rt. Hon. Sir Christopher Rose
Chief Surveillance Commissioner
Office of Surveillance Commissioners
PO Box 29105,
London, SW1V 1ZU

Copy via email: oscmailbox@osc.gsi.gov.uk

20th September 2007

Dear Sir Christopher,

I am writing to you in respect of the current Automatic Number Plate Recognition mass surveillance scheme, which was announced by Home Office Minister Tony McNulty on 17th July 2007, involving "real time" "bulk data transfers" between the London Congestion Charge system run by Transport for London and the Metropolitan Police Service.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmhansrd/cm070717/wmstext/70717m0002.htm#07071769000274

" The Minister of State, Home Department (Mr. Tony McNulty): I would like to inform the House that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has signed a certificate to exempt Transport for London (TfL) and the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) from certain provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 to facilitate the bulk transfer of Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) data from TfL to the MPS. The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police believes that it is necessary due to the enduring, vehicle-borne terrorist threat to London. The MPS requires bulk ANPR data from TfL's camera network in London specifically for terrorism intelligence purposes and to prevent and investigate such offences. The infrastructure will allow the realtime flow of data between TfL and the MPS.

As one of the conditions of this certificate, the MPS will provide an annual report to the Information Commissioner so that he can satisfy himself that the personal data processed under the certificate is required for the purposes of safeguarding national security, and that any processing that is undertaken other than under an exemption set out in the certificate is carried out in compliance with the Data Protection Act 1998.

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will review the operation of the certificate in three months time when the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police provides her with a separate, interim report so that she can be personally satisfied that the certificate is being operated in accordance with the agreement and that the privacy of individuals is protected. In the coming months, proposals will be developed and discussed across Government to ensure that bulk ANPR data-sharing with the police is subject to a robust regulatory regime which ensures reasonable transparency and scrutiny."

This is obviously far more than a simple Data Protection Act section 29 Notice request for details about a particular suspect vehicle. The use of Ministerial Certificates must mean Mass Surveillance, presumably on a 24/7 basis, outside of the normal Congestion Charge enforcement period i.e. also at night, at weekends and on public holidays, to cover what would otherwise be "excessive data processing" for a purpose other than which the data was originally collected, without explicit personal consent, thereby flouting the fundamental Principles of Data Protection.

I note that there is no mention in the Ministerial Statement of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, which surely must also apply to this Mass Surveillance project, especially in the light of your comments on Automatic Number Plate Recognition in your first Annual Report,

"11.3 Improvements in technology continue to enhance the capability of those charged with the responsibility of tackling crime. But, as indicated in last year's report, the speed of change often surpasses the limitations of current legislation. With regard to Automatic Number Plate Recognition, my position is the same as that of my predecessor and I adhere to the view that legislation is necessary to resolve some issues arising from enhanced technological capability."

Were any of the Surveillance Commissioners consulted about this project before it was announced ?

Have you given your permission for this Mass Surveillance scheme to go ahead, which must catch vast numbers of innocent people and vehicle movements, contrary to the principle of narrowly targeted, proportionate, lawful surveillance under RIPA ?

Yours Sincerely,

[name]
[address]

The short reply was frustrating and depressing - we are obviously "little people", whose concerns and worries, are simply ignored by the bureaucracy and the politicians:

Office of Surveillance Commissioners

[name] [address]

1 October 2007

Dear [name]

Thank you for your letter of 20 September about the Automatic Number Plate Recognition mass surveillance scheme.

The Chief Surveillance Commissioner has seen your letter and asked me to reply on his behalf. He notes your interest in these matters but does not think it appropriate to answer your questions.

I am sorry I cannot be more helpful.

Yours sincerely

[name of secretary]
Secretary to the Office of the Surveillance Commissioners

Office of the Surveillance Commissioners
PO Box 29105
London, SW1V 1ZU
Telephone: 020 7828 3421
Facsimile: 020 7952 1788
Web: www.surveillancecommissioners.gov.uk
email: oscmailbox@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

How is this supposed to represent adequate or proper "independent scrutiny" of the vast powers, and function creep of secret state surveillance snooping, which is increasingly and wastefully being directed at millions of innocent people, rather than being targeted proportionately and narrowly at actual terrorist suspects or serious organised criminals ?

Is it any wonder that people are frustrated by, and resentful of, the people and systems which purport to "protect" the public, whilst maintaining their freedoms and liberties, but which do not do so in practice ?

Posted by at 12:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Daily Telegraph has a story which confirms our suspicions and fears about the controversial secret mass surveillance snooping scheme, which the London Congestion Charge, the London Low Emissions Zone and other linked Transport for London CCTV and ANPR systems have become, with not even a whimper of opposition from the incumbent Labour control freak Mayor of London.

Remember this is not about tracking any known terrorist suspects or their vehicles, or protecting us "in real time" from vehicle bombs, for which the normal law enforcement exemptions under Section 29 of the Data Protection Act were perfectly adequate. This is about snooping and spying on everyone, all of the time through a mass surveillance infrastructure.

The Daily Telegraph reports:

New anti-terrorism rules 'allow US to spy on British motorists'

By Toby Helm and Christopher Hope
Last Updated: 3:06am BST 21/04/2008

Routine journeys carried out by millions of British motorists can be monitored by authorities in the United States and other enforcement agencies across the world under anti-terrorism rules introduced discreetly by Jacqui Smith.

The discovery that images of cars captured on road-side cameras, and "personal data" derived from them, including number plates, can be sent overseas, has angered MPs and civil liberties groups concerned by the increasing use of "Big Brother" surveillance tactics.

Yesterday, politicians and civil liberties groups accused the Home Secretary of keeping the plans to export pictures secret from Parliament when she announced last year that British anti-terrorism police could access "real time" images from cameras used in the running of London's congestion charge.

A statement by Miss Smith to Parliament on July 17, 2007, detailing the exemptions for police from the 1998 Data Protection Act, did not mention other changes that would permit material to be sent outside the European Economic Area (EEA) to the authorities in the US and elsewhere.

See our October 2007 blog posting
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith cripples the Data Protection Act regarding the London Congestion Charge ANPR Mass Surveillance scheme

Her permission to do so was hidden away in an earlier "special certificate" signed by the Home Secretary on July 4.

The certificate specifically sets out the level of data that can be sent to enforcement authorities outside the European Economic Area (the EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) by anti-terrorist officers from the Metropolitan Police. It says:

"The certificate relates to the processing of the images taken by the camera, personal data derived from the images, including vehicle registration mark, date, time and camera location."

A spokesman for Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, confirmed that the certificate had been worded so that the images of private cars, as well as registration numbers, could be sent outside to countries such as the USA.

Officers from the Metropolitan Police have been given the right to view in "real time" any CCTV images from cameras that are meant to be enforcing the congestion charge.

Sources said that officers would access the cameras on behalf of overseas authorities if they were informed about a terrorism threat in the UK or elsewhere. They would then share the images, which can be held for five years before being destroyed, if necessary.

On what basis was a data retention period of 5 years, for the data of innocent people justified ?

Why should anyone believe that this data is ever destroyed and is not simply copied to another secret system ?

Who believes that any policeman or civil servant be sent to prison if such data is not destroyed after 5 years ?

[...]

However, the Home Office defended the powers in the certificate, which was signed specifically for the purposes of counter terrorism and national security.

A spokesman declined to say how many times images had been sent from London to other countries.

However, he added: "We would like to reassure the public that robust controls have been put in place to control and safeguard access to, and use of, the information."

Who was this "Home Office spokesman" ? If it was a civil servant, he has just broken the Civil Service Code of Conduct by lying to the media and the general public.

How does destroying the safeguards of the Data Protection Act, such as they are, via such Ministerial Certificates, constitute "robust controls" ?

How can the UK authorities possibly control what a foreign Government does with the copies of the data which they hand over ?

When, not if, a private investigator, in the UK or in the USA etc., bribes or coerces his corrupt law enforcement insider contacts, for access to this data, for private commercial snooping purposes, not for "national security", then there is nothing anymore that the UK Information Commissioner do about it, now that his Data Protection Act Enforcement Powers with regard to this data have been stripped from him by these Ministerial Certificates.

He cannot now even prosecute the dodgy private investigators, and they will never be brought to trial under the Official Secrets Act etc, for fear that details of the the secret data mining experiments come to light in court.

When can we rid ourselves of these Labour party control freaks and their "diverse evill Councellors, Judges and Ministers" who "endeavour to subvert and extirpate ... the Lawes and Liberties of this Kingdome" (using the wording of the Bill of Rights 1689) ?

Posted by at 2:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We are still trying to understand the implications of the National CCTV Strategy document published by the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Home Office last week:- National CCTV Strategy October 2007 (.pdf 373Kb)

Unfortunately, whilst quite interesting, this document is incomplete in many areas, and must not be taken as the final word on the subject.

Some initial thoughts:

Continue reading "National CCTV Strategy - worryingly incomplete" »

Posted by at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Following on from our attempts to get some information from the Government regarding the conversion of the controversial London Congestion Charge Automatic Number Plate Recognition enforcement scheme into an even more controversial Mass Surveillance tool, without any public debate:

Surveillance State Function Creep - London Congestion Charge "real-time bulk data" to be automatically handed over to the Metropolitan Police etc.

We originally wrote to the Home Secretary on 24th July 2007, and were totally ignored, despite email and postal reminders, The Home Office have eventually disclosed only today i.e. on the 4th October 2007, that they have already published the Ministerial Certificate signed by Jacqui Smith see

Provisions of the DPA for real -time access to cameras - released on 17th August, published on the Home Office website on the 21st August 2007

There are two documents:

• Documents setting the reasons for granting certificate under section 28 of Data Protection Act (706Kb .pdf). This is referenced as DPA/s.28/MPS/2008/CC2 in the actual Ministerial Certificate signed by the Home Secretary Rt. Hon. Jacqui Smith MP

• Copy of the certificate signed by the Home Secretary, under the Data Protection Act 1998 (.pdf 260 Kb )
  

Shame on all you privacy and security experts and on the mainstream media out there for not noticing this back in August !

Incredibly for the 21st Century, these web documents are Adobe .pdf images of photocopies of printed documents presumably originally produced on a word processor.

We have therefore re-typed the Ministerial Certificate below for the benefit of web search search engines and for fellow victims and students of the Labour government's Surveillance Police State.

As Douglas Adams wrote in The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1978 / 1979):

'But Mr. Dent, the plans have been available in the local
planning office for the last nine months'
'Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them had you? I mean like actually telling anyone or anything.'
'But the plans were on display...'
'On display? I eventually had to go to the cellar to find them.'That's the display department.'
'With a torch.'
'Ah, well the lights had probably gone.'
'So had the stairs.'
'But look, you found the notice didn't you?'
'Yes,' said Arthur, 'yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard.'

Continue reading "Home Secretary Jacqui Smith cripples the Data Protection Act regarding the London Congestion Charge ANPR Mass Surveillance scheme" »

Posted by at 11:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Ok, so an alleged terrorist plot has been "disrupted", according to Home Secretary John Reid's statement this morning.

Where are the explosives ? We are willing to bet, that no viable bombs have been found, and that the threat is not actually CRITICAL i.e. imminent.

The overreaction of the Department of Transport in ordering the banning of handluggage on all flights seems insane, as a practical security measure.

All it is doing is creating massive disruption to the innocent travelling public.

Nobody should trust the security of the hold luggage systems at "Thiefrow" airport, or any other airport with their valuable mobile phones, laptop computers, sensitive documents etc. Lots of these will be lost, damaged or stolen.

Despite John Reid's statement this morning, to "keep the public informed", he has not, in fact bothered to do so.

The news and media broadcasters are doing their usual routine, of quoting from unnamed sources, about possibly 18 arrests in the London and Thames Valley area, a possible threat of "liquid explosives", and rumours that those arrested are all British, with simultaneous attacks on transatlantic aeroplanes.

Is this "liquid explosive threat", anything more than the media jumping to conclusions because of the stupid security measures, whereby mothers are being asked to taste their baby's milk bottles in front of airport staff ? Why this cannot be easily faked, with a standard magicians's conjuring trick bottle, is a mystery.

In what possible way is the presence of "liquid explosives" in hold luggage any safer than in the passenger cabin of an aircraft ?

If hold luggage is now jammed full of electronic equipment, like laptop computers, mobile phones etc, how can any bomb detonating mechnisms be detected via X-Ray etc ?

This makes a further mockery of the equally stupid "please switch on your electronic equipment" so called security check of hand luggage, which will now not be possible.

Is this Forest Gate all over again, with the media speculating about biological, chemical, nuclear and radiological ("dirty bomb") threats, simply because the Police were wearing protective suits and masks ?

The news reports claim that the authorities have had the plotters under surveillance for some time, but that the threatened plot was not, apparently going to happen today.

Why then, has the nationwide Threat Level now been raised to SEVERE ?

The answer must be purely political "Climate of Fear" hype.

It cannot be a coincidence that this has all happened the day after John Reid's appalling speech on "national security", in which he managed to re-write history, by claiming that the current threat to the UK, from a single terrorist, somehow exceeds that of the entire Soviet Union during the Cold War, and that of the IRA etc.

The offical information given out so far is utterly inadequate, and is simply fuelling media speculation and adding to the "Climate of Fear", a process, which we asume is a deliberate ploy, given the NuLabour Government's record of "news management".

Posted by at 8:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Scotsman newspaper has a report about the possible illegality of Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) camera technology, when used as a mass surveillance tool.

The Scotsman
Sat 15 Jul 2006

Number plate cameras may be illegal

Hamish MacDonnel, Scottish Political Editor

POLICE cameras which use automatic number plate recognition could breach human rights legislation, a leading surveillance expert has warned.

Sir Andrew Leggatt, Chief Surveillance Commissioner, urged ministers in Edinburgh and London to bring forward legislation swiftly to ensure the equipment is in line with privacy laws and police are not prevented from using the cameras to provide evidence in court.

[...]

In his annual report, before both the Scottish Parliament and Westminster, Sir Andrew urged ministers to amend the law on both sides of the border to make sure the evidence from the cameras is not challenged in court.

UPDATE:The Annual report of the Chief Surveillance Commissioner to the Prime Minister and to Scottish Ministers for 2005-2006 (.pdf 34 pages) is now available online.

Continue reading "Is mass surveillance ANPR illegal ?" »

Posted by at 4:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Thanks are due to Perry de Havilland at Samizdata, [UPDATE: and other people like John Lilburne] for nominating the CCTV camera as one of the "Icons" on the Government's controversial million pound Icons of England propaganda website.

The CCTV camera is the perfect icon for Britain today, summing up the nature of the changing relationship between civil society and political state. They are an innovation in which Britain leads the world both technologically and in usage and are the visible manifestation of so many things which happen out of sight. It is almost impossible to avoid their gaze for an entire day and sitting like steel crows on their perches above us, truly they are emblematic of modern Britain.

Please vote for this "icon", and perhaps the "CCTV camera" will take its place alongside "fox hunting" as icons chosen by the people, rather than one of those foisted on us by the Government.

Posted by at 4:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Thanks to an email correspondent for alerting us to the Mayor Of London Ken Livingstone's latest mass surveillance plans. He is proposing Yet Another Automatic Number Plate Recognition system, which will snoop on every vehicle entering or leaving the Greater London within the M25 orbital motorway, this time, under the pretext of enforcing a Low Emission Zone, to curb some diesel engine pollution, starting in 2008.

There are still unanswered questions about the controversial and privacy invasive London Congestion Charge scheme and its Westward Extension, ,

See "M25 Low Emission Zone - another ANPR surveillance snooping scheme"

Low Emission Zone Consultation

Frequently Asked Questions

This will cover all the 33 London Boroughs within the M25, but not the M25 itself, and will seek to limit particulate carbon air pollutants , which are mostly produced by pre-2001 vintage diesel engined lorries etc. through Yet Another Automatic Number Plate Recognition enforced system of fees (£100 to £200 a day) and fines (£ 1000 or more).

Unlike the London Congestion Charge, presumably this LEZ scheme will need to be run 24/7 and at weekends.

"It is proposed that the LEZ would be enforced using Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras similar to those used for Congestion Charging. Fixed cameras would be supplemented by mobile patrol units fitted with ANPR cameras"

Why have they chosen the most intrusive and privacy unfriendly "control freak" way of enforcing this anti-pollution policy ?

It is not possible for ANPR cameras to monitor just HGVs, they must pick up all vehicles. Surely there will be the temptation to feed this system into the controversial National ANPR Database, and to retain the traffic movement data on millions of innocent drivers for 2 to 6 years, or more ?

Posted by at 8:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Home Office Minister Paul Goggins answered a Parliamentary Question about Automatic Number Plate Recognition databases recently.

Note how the Answer gives the misleading impression that the data belonging to innocent drivers will only be retained for 2 years.

In fact if you actually read the Association of Chief Police Officers' guidance, which the Answer quotes from, but which it does not provide a reference to the title ("E.C.H.R., Data Protection & RIPA Guidance Relating to the Police use of A.N.P.R (Excluding speed enforcement devices") or, the URL to this document on the ACPO website, (Microsoft Word format), you see that the limit is actually 6 years or even longer.

Continue reading "ANPR database retention rules - Parliamentary Answer claims 2 years when it is actually 6 years or longer" »

Posted by at 2:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Independent has a few more details about the astonishing plan to create a centralised Automatic Number Plate Recognition Database, which will attempt to monitor every vehicle movement on the United Kingdom from next year.

Britain will be first country to monitor every car journey

From 2006 Britain will be the first country where every journey by every car will be monitored
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 22 December 2005

Britain is to become the first country in the world where the movements of all vehicles on the roads are recorded. A new national surveillance system will hold the records for at least two years.

Using a network of cameras that can automatically read every passing number plate, the plan is to build a huge database of vehicle movements so that the police and security services can analyse any journey a driver has made over several years.

This plan seems to get more and more ambitious with every report.

Where was the Public Consultation or the Parliamentary Scrutiny of this invasion of the privacy of millions of innocent road users, not just the movements of suspected criminals ?

We have already tried to warn about the implications of this plan before.

Perhaps the viewers of popular TV programmes like Top Gear and Fifth Gear will start to take some notice of this evil plan.

Continue reading "National ANPR database - guilt by association on the roads" »

Posted by at 3:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (19)

The Mail on Sunday has been investigating the scandal of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency

DVLA sells your details to criminals by MARTIN DELGADO, ROB LUDGATE and MARK NICHOL, Mail on Sunday 08:16am 27th November 2005

The Government is selling the names and home addresses of motorists on its drivers' database to convicted criminals, a Mail on Sunday investigation has revealed.

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) tells would-be wheel-clampers there is "no problem" with them buying drivers' home addresses - even if they have a criminal record.

Indeed, the two bosses of one clamping firm on the list of companies to whom the DVLA is happy to sell drivers' details are currently serving seven years' jail between them for extorting money from motorists.

The Mail on Sunday has now forced the DVLA to hand over its list of 157 firms which can buy personal information about drivers at £2.50 a time. All the companies need do is tap in a registration plate, and back comes the full name and address of the vehicle's owners.

THe DVLA has issued a Press Statement which tries to claim that they are not at fault. If it is not their fault, then who else can be blamed ? ?

This is not the first scandal which has betrayed what should be private personal data e.g. DVLA database compromised by animal rights extremists

No senior officials or Ministers responsible for such scandals have been disciplined or have resigned.

If the DVLA cannot effectively prevent abuse when they deal with fewer than 150 companies, then what chance is there for the Government to be able to assure us about the controversial proposed National Identity Register ? According to the Home Office ID Card "Procurement Strategy Market Sounding" documents will have 265 Government Departments and 44,000 private sector organisations "accredited" to be linked to the system !

Continue reading "DVLA database details sold to criminals - implications for the proposed National Identity Register" »

Posted by at 6:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (59)

Following on from the worrying report in the Sunday Times about the plans for a 2 year data retention of innocent motorists vehicle movements on the forthcoming new National ANPR Database, we have had a reply from ACPO, the Association of Chief Police Officers.

Essentially they confirm the Sunday Times story, whilst obviously questioning the sensationalist tone of the headline and of the article.

ACPO were kind enough to send us a copy of their public domain document issued by the ACPO National ANPR User Group in October 2004.

It does not seem to be published yet on ACPO's website, which does contain many other policy and guidance notes, whilst proclaiming that ACPO is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act 2000. How this can be so is a topic worth a few blog postings all on its own, given that ACPO, despite being a "company limited by guarantee", is funded mostly by the Home Office, and is involved in supervising various public policing policies.. How can it not be classed as a "public body" under the FOIA ?

However, since this document is marked as "This document can be published on any Web Site that the public have access", here it is: "E.C.H.R., Data Protection & RIPA Guidance Relating to the Police use of A.N.P.R (Excluding speed enforcement devices). (Micrsoft Word format)

The Guidance shows that all the right questions about the European Convention on Human Rights, article 8 the Right to Privacy, the Data Protection Act and the Regulation of investigatory Powers Act etc. have all been asked by these senior Policemen. These questions are even more relevant to a centralised, National ANPR Database scheme than they are to isolated roadside ANPR cameras or even to ANPR schemes run by a single Police Force.

However, there has literally been no public debate or even Parliamentary scrutiny, about important decisions such as the Data Retention Period.

Who exactly decided that 2 years (or even longer if "someone" gives permission) was the appropriate data retention period for "national security" or that 90 days" was the appropriate period for "general crime policing" purposes, of innocent motorists' vehicle movement data ? Any ANPR data involved in an actual Major Crime is retained for at least 6 years.

Continue reading "ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) Data Retention guidance by ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers)" »

Posted by at 4:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)

If the Sunday Times is to be believed , a newspaper which has proven itself to be entirely capable of misinterpreting any new technology, the latest NuLabour Police "total surveillance" fantasy involves even more spy cameras on our road network than the thousands of them which are already in place. The article (which like many of their dubvious technoligy feature articles is illustrated by an artist's impression) includes this alarming claim::

Details of any vehicle passing a camera will be stored in a database for at least two years — even if the owner has not committed an offence

This is so unacceptable as to beggar belief.

There is no, repeat, no justification for retaining the ANPR processed license plate, location, time and date records of millions of innocent motorists for two minutes, let alone 2 years !

The Sunday Times November 13, 2005

Spy cameras to spot drivers’ every move
Emma Smith and Dipesh Gadher

BRITAIN’S top traffic policeman is pushing through plans to create a national network of roadside spy cameras that will be able to track the movements of motorists around the clock.

Continue reading "Centralised ANPR database to retain innocent motorists vehicle movements for 2 years ?" »

Posted by at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (15) | TrackBacks (1)

Transport for London seem to be testing some more advanced Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras, controversially ahead of the actual decision to proceed with the proposed westward extension of the London Congestion Charge zone.

Thanks to the C.N.U.T. - Congestion charge Nefarious Underhand Tax for drawing this Evening Standard article to our attention:

Trials for super-spy cameras By David Williams Motoring Editor, Evening Standard 17 June 2005

Secret trials of cameras for the extension to the congestion charge zone are under way.

Powerful new digital cameras are being tested at two sites.

They can read thousands of number plates in minutes

Officials say the trials are vital to ensure that if the westward extension is approved by Mayor Ken Livingstone, the new cameras are ready to go.

But critics say the scale of the trials suggest the extension is poised to proceed despite widespread opposition.

Critics question why the trials are going ahead when the decision on extending the zone will not be made until September.

They say the earliest it can be rolled out to Kensington and Chelsea is 2007 - by which time the technology could be dated.

One Transport for London (TfL) insider said: "The extension-might not have been approved but it looks as though it is going to go ahead. These are heavy-duty trials. It seems it is being steamrollered through."

[see photos below]

Continue reading "London Congestion Charge advanced ANPR camera test" »

Posted by at 2:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (1)

Several Sunday newspapers have picked up on The Independent on Sunday's interview with Alistair Darling, the Secretary of State for Transport, who is again hyping up his plan revealed last July for "satellite tracking road tolls" over the whole country.

Yet again a NuLabour Minister is grasping at unproven technology as a magic fix for social problems.

See our comments on this plan when it was revealed last July: "Alistair Darling's satellite tracking road toll plans - another Big Brother surveillance system"

The Road Pricing Feasibility Study is available on the Department of Transport's website.

Where are the privacy safeguards with this plan ? Where is the consultation with the people ? Where are the alternative plans and solutions to traffic congestion ?

The media has only ever reported this plan from a transport or environmental viewpoint, and not from the very obvious dangers to privacy and civil liberties of the vast majority of law abiding motorists.

Nobody can be trusted with such a powerful mass surveillance infrastructure.

The Germans have had huge difficulties with their lorries only, motorways only, toll scheme using a combination of GPS and roadside radio beacons.

The London Congestion Charge shows the incompetence of the privatised back end payment and enforcement operators - over a million unpaid penalty tickets for a tiny area of central London !

GPS signals certainly do not cover all of the road network, there are lots of "black spots" where the direct view to 4 satellites is blocked by buildings or trees.

The media have also consistently given the misleading impression that the "satellite tracking" somehow involves sending a signal up to a satellite in orbit, when the only signals are beamed down from orbit. The GPS satellite knows nothing of your GPS receiver's actual position.

Any "offline" In-Car-Unit which decrements the amount of pre-paid road toll according to GPS signals will:

1. be defrauded by simple devices which re-broadcast much stronger spoof GPS location signals, pretending to be stationary or in a low charge zone. These are much simpler devices than the ones people already pay money for to get pirate satellite or cable TV programs, so a new black market will be created.

2. be vulnerable to rogue transmitters sending out spoofing signals which fool the In-Car-Unit into assuming that it is in a high toll charge zone - how are most people ever going to be able to dispute such false toll charges ?

Any "online" combined GPS/Mobile phone type In-Car-Unit is directly equivalent to the technology of Electronic Tagging of Criminals, which does seem to be the attitude of the Government to the public.

Posted by at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (17) | TrackBacks (3)

Many people doubt that so called "Safety Cameras" (usually doppler radar activated speed cameras) on roads, are solely, or even primarily, intended to reduce the number of road accidents. The suspicion is that they are very often a "stealth tax" revenue raising measure.

That is certainly the view of the reported 180 or so participants in a "go slow" protest on the M4 Motorway in Wiltshire today.

Unlike, say, the camera controlled variable speed limit on the M25 motorway near Heathrow Airport, the Wiltshire scheme is using far less visible mobile units parked on bridges, so the emphasis seems to be on enforcement and revenue generation, rather than actual long term speed reduction deterrence.

It is unclear if any Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology is to be used during this campaign by the Wiltshire and Swindon Road Safety Partnership

Posted by at 4:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Additional issues for concern include the Data Retention period and policy for these systems.

Whilst the theory is that they merely do a lookup of a customer's vehicle Number Plate against a "blacklist" of convicted or previous "driven off without paying" records, it is hard to believe that there are no log files or engineering test modes in such equipment which can also keep a tab on legitimate customers time, date and location information.

How long is such data retained for, and is is ever passed on to other people, such as market research companies or even to the Police etc ?

Sainsburys’ bogus "Big Brother"
© 2005 Manfred Roxon

Continue reading "Sainsburys petrol stations and Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR)" »

Posted by at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (20) | TrackBacks (1)

Is the United Kingdom really set to have Yet Another National Police Database ?

Automatic Number Plate Recognition seems to be a rapidlly expanding technology amongst the 43 or so UK Police Forces, according to a press release from the Association of Chief Police Officers

John Lettice has a good article in The Register which cites a Police Information Technology Organisation web page which lists the history of ANPR schemes.

Given the 25 to 30 million vehicles on the roads, it makes sense to use this sort of technology to try to clamp down on stolen or untaxed vehicles.

The use of mobile or fixed CCTV camera systems combined with a roadside police intercept team to conduct legal "stops and searches" of vehicles, where the grounds of "reasonable suspicion" have been provided by the ANPR lookup on the Driver Vehicle Licensing Agency and Police Intelligence databases, should be a proportionate use of the technology and is to be welcomed.

However, we really do have serious concerns about using ANPR for "intelligence" rather than for "reasonable suspicion" stops and searches.

"Key points from the Strategy include:

• Development of a national infrastructure of ANPR enabled cameras and readers to cover strategic sites

• Developing a National ANPR Data Centre to analyse intelligence from ANPR readers from across the country"

Will this be a new infrastructure of roadside cameras, or will existing systems be hijacked ? Either these existing cameras are not properly justified and are under utilised, or the ANPR tasks will compete with the primary function e.g. traffic queue management

Who exactly pays for this national infrastructure ? The local council tax payers ?

Will the private sector Trafficmaster system be used or will the controversial National Roads Teleccomunications Services Project ?

• "All police forces in England and Wales having at least one dedicated ANPR intercept team by October 2005, with more to follow"

According to thus report in The Guardian, the Police Federation are worried about the decrease in Traffic Police numbers:

"He feels the new officers will be an excuse to whittle down the already dwindling ranks of traffic police, which dropped in manpower from 7,500 to 6,200 between 1998 and 2002"

whose duties, powers and training, especially for "stop and search", cannot be substituted by lower paid civilian auxilaries employed by the Highways Agency.

More ANPR camera technology is unjustifiable if there are even fewer actual Traffic Police patrols on the road.

"Using hypothecated income from Fixed Penalty Notices resulting from ANPR activity to fund further ANPR development"

Hypothecated taxes ? No ! As John Lettice points out, this looks to be as controversial as Speed Cameras or Privatised Car Clamping, where there is plenty of evidence of abuses caused by financial income targets.

• "Using ANPR data within force intelligence and investigative strategies"

The PITO webpage also includes the chilling phrase:

"In addition, PITO’s Central Customer is identifying future ANPR requirements, such as the development of a national database to store all ANPR ‘reads’ and analytical tools to mine this."

This implies collecting and collating ANPR time and location data on millions of innocent vehicles, which are not on any "wanted list".

All the same questions we asked (and failed to get answers about) in our London Congestion Charge Concerns such as Data Retention and other Data Privacy policies comes to mind.

We have extreme privacy concerns about these hidden "intelligence" uses for a national mass surveillance system.

This needs to be invesigated by the Information Commissioner needs to investigate probable breaches of the Data Protection Act, as does the Surveillance Commissioner, for disproportionate use of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, before the specifications for the system are finalised.

Posted by at 8:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (1)

The Home Office has announced more funding to the tune of £15 million to expand the use of Automatic Number Plate Recognition systems throughout the UK's Police Forces.

The pilot projects are claimed as a success, and have resulted in 9 times the arrests by roadside patrols than for similar teams not equipped with ANPR and data links to the Police National Computer, and local Firearms and Drugs intelligence databases.

All well and good, this is the 21st Century and it is impossible to use purely manual methods to catch Road Tax evaders, disqualified drivers etc.when there are nearly 30 million vehicles on the roads.

However, as with all Home Office technology initiatives, there is a danger of throwing away precious civil liberties and individual privacy, in the rush to make headline grabbing crime statistics.

The very short "Case Studies" examples in the "Notes to Editors" (as if the general public are incapable of understanding these themselves) included in the Home Office Press Release show some potential danger areas in the more widespread use of ANPR.

Already prevalent in London, where the ANPR enforced Congestion Charge has led to a large increase in the number of vehicles using false "cloned" number plates based on innocent vehicles with of a similar or identical model and colour, so that any £80 Penalty Notices for not paying the Congestion Charge are sent to the address of an innoocent Registered Keeper of the vehicle with the genuine Number Plate. This will only increase as more road tolling and congestion charge schemes spread through the country, which is what the Department of Transport seems to be planning to encourage.

The Home Office press release cites two "case studies":

"In December 2003 during an ANPR operation, a CCTV camera registered a PNC hit on a 4x4 vehicle. The vehicle was suspected of using clone plates having previously gone through a speed camera in Surrey"

and also

"In June 2004, a Golf TDi drove through a check site and activated a PNC warning that the vehicle may be using false number plates"

When the ANPR system is made even more widespread, the chances ofa roadside patrol stopping and harrassing the innocent vehicle which the cloned or faked number plates are trying to throw suspicion on increases substantially.

If the criminals are also flagged as "Occupant suspected of possession of drugs" or "Occupant suspected of carrying Firearms", then this will be a potentially terryfying experience for the innocent driver of the vehicle, involving armed police officers and perhaps police dogs.

The current Operation Laser equipment only stores information locally within the roadside unit. However, function creep being what it is with IT projects, one can already detect the temptation for widespread automated database trawling in another of the "case studies". It is a short step on the road to hell from:

"A Mini Metro passed through an ANPR intercept site and showed as a hit on a local database. Intelligence suggested that this vehicle had been spotted the previous week in suspicious circumstances and that it was likely to be used by a gang of local shoplifters. The vehicle was stopped and checks made on the occupants"

to 24/7 ANPR linked to the CCTV systems in town centres, ports, airports etc. and to other ANPR systems like the UK Army's Glutton system (used to track vehicle movements to and from Northern Ireland), perhaps in conjunction with Trafficmaster being used to log the movements of the 30 million innocent vehicles over a period of time.

Once such ANPR systems start getting linked together, then the opportunities for corrupt or ideologically motivated police or civilians with access to the database to stalk or track potential victims is huge.

The Home Office report "Driving down crime" (170 page .pdf), which gives more details about the ANPR pilot schemes, also contains the worrying reccommendation to create yet another massive national database.

"There is a need for a national data warehouse to hold all vehicle intelligence to be read in real time by all ANPR users nationally. In turn, this data warehouse would also hold ANPR reads and hits as a further source of vehicle intelligence, providing great benefits to major crime and terrorism enquiries."

Even though this very same report criticises the innaccuracy of the Driver Vehicle Licesnsing Agency records, it assumes that somehow the same problems would not affect this new system.

Any increase in the use of ANPR by the Police must only happen within a framework of privacy checks and balances to protect the the innocent and must not become part of a generalised state surveillance system.

Posted by at 4:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The BBC reports that "DVLA man helped animal activists"

"A vehicle registration official who gave drivers' addresses to animal rights activists has been jailed for five months.
Barry Saul Dickinson, 34, of Manor Forstal, New Ash Green, Kent, was convicted at Stafford Crown Court of misconduct in a public office.

A police spokesman said information had been used to "terrorise" families."

Just as with the case of the corrupt Metropolitan police constable Ghazi Kassim, the question must be asked, why this person was not charged under Section 58 of the Terrorism Act - Collection of Information ?

"58. - (1) A person commits an offence if-

(a) he collects or makes a record of information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, or
(b) he possesses a document or record containing information of that kind.

(2) In this section "record" includes a photographic or electronic record."

Why is he not serving a 10 year jail sentence instead of 5 months ?

Despite the media hype, Al Quaeda are not the only terrorist threat that we face, the particularly nasty minority of so called animal rights extremists are also a terroist threat, albeit on a smaller scale.

The Driver Vehicle Licensing Authority database is also routinely handed over to insurance companies and to the London Congestion Charge scheme to enforce its Automatic Number Plate Recognition system. The chances are that this data is available for a fee on the backstreets of Bangalore in India, which is where Capita, the notorious Government IT sub-contractor has outsiurced all its database software development, in order to exploit cheap labour in India.

Posted by at 1:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (1)

Sir Andrew Leggatt has published his "Annual Report of the Chief Surveillance Commissioner to the Prime Minister and to Scottish Ministers for 2003-2004" (.pdf)

We note with interest, that although the Office of Surveillance Commissioners does not deal with the wider privacy issues of CCTV surveillance cameras per se:

"I shall continue to monitor technological developments closely, such as body scanners, facial recognition and Automatic Number Plate Recognition to ensure that their use does not transgress legislation for the protection of privacy."

We hope that the Surveillance Commissioner will double check that any deployments of the new "see through walls" or "see under your clothes" technologies which are supposed to detect hidden weapons or elosives e.g. Passive Millimetre Wave Radar imagers or Low Intensity X-Ray scanners or Ultra Wide Band devices do not breach either the Voyeurism offence of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 or are capable of "making or distributing" unclothed images of children i.e. kiddie porn. The potential to cause harassment to individuals (one's inside leg measurement or bra size is , after all, very personal data) and to entire ethnic or religous minority communities through the use of such technologies, especially if deployed in a covert manner, should not be underestimated.

The report also mentions the fact that new Guidance has had to be issued to the Police regarding the planting of CCTV and other surveillance devices in private residences or premises which are being subjected to "Repeat Burglaries". The issue is one of informed consent of other innocent visitors and residents who will not be aware that they are under CCTV surveillance, and for whom there is no surveillance warrant.

This principle should really also apply to any public CCTV surveillance system, but of course, the terms of reference for the Surveillance Commissioner are very tightly drawn and only deal with where the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act applies to public authorities. Private sector snooping is not covered or regulated at all.

Continue reading "Annual Report of the Chief Surveillance Commissioner" »

Posted by at 9:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

How many times have Home Secretaries stood up in Parliament and assured the public that the draconian anti-terrorist laws are "proportionate" and are only intended to be used in exceptional cases, where there are clear "intelligence led policing" grounds for suspicion ?

The official Home Office figures (.pdf) show a vastly different picture of what actually happens in practice (no figures given for Scotland and Northern Ireland)

Text of the Terrorism Act 2000

"Vehicle searches under Terrorism Act 2000 s 44(1)

2002/2003: 4774 searches leading to only 7 arrests connected with terrorism and 79 for other reasons"

These figures are available in more detail, and show the disproportionate concentration of stops and searches involving various ethnic minorities, and the more explainable prominence of urban city police forces covering the highest population densities.

If tens of thousands of stops and searches lead to only a handful of arrests for terrorist related offences, all that this policy is doing is alienating the public, especially, young Muslims, and helping to recruit them into extremist groups. This policy is playing into the hands of the terrorists and is actually a threat to our national security and must be stopped. Has nothing been learned from Northern Ireland ?

Continue reading "Why so few arrests with supposedly "intelligence led" Terrorism Act stops and searches ?" »

Posted by at 2:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Guy Kewney reports from the London Wireless LAN Event trade show that Last Mile Communications / TIVIS (Total In Vehicle Information System) Limited seem, somehow, to have done a monopoly deal with the notorious Highways Agency of the Department of Transport to install microwave beacons on 150,000 lamp posts as part of the National Roads Telecommunications Services Project. Where was the public consultation on this massive project ?

N.B. these are the same beaureaucrats who allowed the Trafficmaster Automatic Number Plate Recognition surveillance network to appear on public land without any public debate.

The National Roads Telecommunications Services Project promises all sorts of high speed telecomms network access, which is all well and good, however, the system is apparently going to work at 63 to 65 GigaHerz.

63 to 65 GigaHerz is well into the Passive Millimetre Wave Radar Camera operating range.

Are we now, thanks to this proposed massive network of external Millimetre Wave Radar spotlights, going to have our privacy further eroded by "see through walls" and "see under your children's clothes" Passive Millimetre Wave Radar Cameras and imaging systems which will now be able to snoop at longer range or through thicker obstacles, then they would normally capable of when only working with "background radiation" illumination ?

All the reassurances that Passive Millimetre Wave Radar Cameras only use "natural background" radiation and must therefore be "safe" will be nonsense if this system is deployed on our streets.

What are the health risks, if any, of constant exposure to 63 or 65 GHz millimetre wave radar radiation ? What about any harmonics which are produced by the actual equipment, at lower and higher frequencies ? Where are the health studies which prove that the proposed power levels are safe ? It is not fair to compare the alleged effect on health by using results or experience from Mobile Phone frequencies (0.9GHz and 1.8 GHz) and power levels, with a system which uses frequencies an order of magnitude higher (63 GHz).

If there have been no such health studies, then a "safe" level of power output cannot be set arbitrarily. The proposed level of 200mW has more to do with not interfering with satellite and military communications systems than with respect for human health or privacy.

We should not be repeating the mistakes made with Mobile Phone microwave frequencies and infrastructure. Show the public that these technologies are safe and will not impinge on their privacy, before the equipment is deployed at tens of thousands of locations all over the country.

Posted by at 7:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)

David Carr on the White Rose blog raises the issue of Automatic Number Plate Recognition following this article by John Lettice in The Register

Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology has a legitimate place as a useful law enforcement tool. Its use by mobile police patrols who are then in a position to stop and examine a suspicious vehicle is not much of a privacy problem.

The real privacy problems with ANPR come from public systems which monitor all the vehicles in view, e.g.

• All 24 million users of the 7500 miles motorways and A class roads in the UK, not just the 100,000 or so who have paid for a road traffic information service e.g. Trafficmaster

  
  

• Every vehicle entering or leaving the massive Blue Water retail shopping park near Dagenham (allegedly just monitoring the vehicles of staff)

• The notorious London Congestion Charge scheme where ANPR and other "scene " photos and videos are captured, not just of those people who are trying to evade the ?5 charge, but of all the people who have paid or are exempt.

• All vehicles crossing the main Forth and Tay bridges in Scotland

Posted by at 5:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)