Cop: CCTV a "fiasco"

[Blind_Io]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05...tv_is_rubbish/

A senior Metropolitan police officer has described the UK's CCTV strategy as a "fiasco", saying billions had been spent with very little impact on either stopping crime or providing evidence.
But don't count on the UK's flocks of cameras being taken down any time soon - the comments appear to be a thinly veiled plea for more cash to be poured into the country's favourite surveillance technology.

Mick Neville, head of New Scotland Yard's Visual Images, Identifications and Detections Office (Viido) said: "Billions of pounds has been spent on kit, but no thought has gone into how the police are going to use the images and how they will be used in court. It's been an utter fiasco: only three per cent of crimes were solved by CCTV."
Neville told the Guardian that officers often do not look for images beyond those held by local councils. He said investigating officers don't like looking through CCTV images "because it's hard work".
Viido will start putting images of suspects in mugging, robbery and rape cases on the Metropolitan Police website next month. The Met already puts up images of suspects in high profile crimes.
Plans to create a national CCTV database seems to be on hold because technology to carry out automatic searches is not up to the job. However, a database is in the works which uses tracking technology from the sports advertising industry. This looks for distinctive logos on clothing to find previous images of suspects where they may not have concealed their identities as effectively as when they actually committed the crime.
Viido is creating a London-wide database which is reinforced by written descriptions of suspects. Where this is being trialled it is "helping the police" in some 15 to 20 per cent of street robberies. Neville accepted that such moves could raise Big Brother concerns.
The comments seem to be a demand for more and better CCTV, rather than a reversal of the UK's love affair with surveillance and reactive policing. They also reflect last October's report on UK CCTV strategy which said most cameras do not provide good enough images to identify people and that police often do not get access to relevant images regardless of their quality. It also called for a national register of cameras and networking them so they can be accessed remotely - police usually have to visit the camera, or control room, in order to view the footage.
Cheshire's deputy chief constable Graham Gerrard said there was no point having a national DNA database if police still had to approach 43 different forces to access images of suspects, the paper adds. He said plans for the Facial Indentification National Database (Find) were on hold because of technology problems.
Echoing the feelings of many who deal with IT suppliers, he said: "Sometimes when they put their [equipment] in operational practice, it's not as wonderful as they said it would be... I suspect [Find] has been put on hold until the technology matures. Before you can digitise every offender's image you have to make sure the lighting is right and it's a good picture."
The Information Commissioner has said it wants to see safeguards on who can access images, and it would have concerns if images of "individuals going about their daily lives was retained".

So right now CCTV costs billions and has solved only 3% of cases, lets solve the problem by throwing more money at it!

Someone do the math, figure two billion per 3% reduction in crime, how much to eliminate crime all together or have a 100% solve-rate? Isn't that about 600,000,000,000 or 600 billion Pounds?

[BlaRo]

It's hard work looking at CCTV? Is it even harder to do your fucking job?

[nist7]

hey!

Which side are you on Blind???? Are you advocating for criminals????

The safety of the public must not be compromised! The criminals that de-moralize and de-grade this society must be stopped at all costs!

A secure and peaceful city is priceless! CCTVs must be installed in every street corner! We WILL WIN THE WAR ON CRIME!

/sarcasm

[anti-net]

We need more police men on the streets, not in rooms with a load of cameras, I rarely see police on the streets and if I do it's a PCSO in the middle of town, where there is little crime and not on the council estates where a lot of violent crime happens.

[BerserkerCatSplat]

Originally Posted by nist7

hey!

Which side are you on Blind???? Are you advocating for criminals????

The safety of the public must not be compromised! The criminals that de-moralize and de-grade this society must be stopped at all costs!

A secure and peaceful city is priceless! CCTVs must be installed in every street corner! We WILL WIN THE WAR ON CRIME!

/sarcasm

England prevails!

[tigger]

Originally Posted by Blind_Io

Someone do the math, figure two billion per 3% reduction in crime, how much to eliminate crime all together or have a 100% solve-rate? Isn't that about 600,000,000,000 or 600 billion Pounds?

That's not a 3% reduction in crime, it's a 3% increase in cases solved. So CCTV doesn't actually have an effect on lowering the crime rate, it just helps cops put away a few more robbers. Yeah, that's worth a few billion more of the taxpayers dollars!

[anti-net]

Originally Posted by BlaRo

It's hard work looking at CCTV? Is it even harder to do your fucking job?

Who the hell do you think you are? Police men? Working? Clearly your some sort of mad communist!

/sarcasm

[teeb]

Originally Posted by anti-net

Who the hell do you think you are? Police men? Working? Clearly your some sort of mad communist!

Worse...

He might be...A LIBERAL!

[Cobol74]

Policeman's report. ... No shit Sherlock.

Newspaper man "Tell me, how has your year been?"
Chief Constable "Excellent 20,000 forms filled in, seven inclusive initiatives, arrested several litters, and I think, last September we even arrested a criminal, ... er we had to let them go again though."

[anti-net]

Originally Posted by teeb

Worse...

He might be...A LIBERAL!

Oh dear god *Gets out a cross to protect himself from the EVIL liberals!!*

[teeb]

Originally Posted by anti-net

Oh dear god *Gets out a cross to protect himself from the EVIL liberals!!*

Quick!

To cleanse ourselves we must read the holy books!

[anti-net]

Originally Posted by teeb

Quick!

To cleanse ourselves we must read the holy books!

Ah yes only Ann Coulter can save us!!

OK I felt ill saying that - Kill her with fire dammit!

[Blind_Io]

I'm a centerist, at least according to those online political tests.

[Ottobon]

Originally Posted by anti-net

Who the hell do you think you are? Police men? Working? Clearly your some sort of mad communist!

/sarcasm

Wtf? its not the Policemans fault that the government is wasting everyones time and money on procedures that make it extremely hard to solve any proper crime efficiently. Generally speaking most police I've met have been good people, a few dicks, but nothing way outside the norm.

[Blind_Io]

http://www.cnet.com/8301-13739_1-9939635-46.html

U.K. turns CCTV, terrorism laws on pooping dogs


The United Kingdom has the most surveillance cameras per capita in the world. With the recent news that CCTV cameras do not actually deter crime, how can the local town councils justify the massive surveillance program? By going after pooping dogs.
In a recent interview with The Guardian, the head of the Metropolitan Police's Visual Images Office explained the failings of CCTV:

"Billions of pounds has been spent on it, but no thought has gone into how the police are going to use the images and how they will be used in court. It's been an utter fiasco: only 3 percent of crimes were solved by CCTV. There's no fear of CCTV. Why don't people fear it? (They think) the cameras are not working."

Conjuring up the bogeymen of terrorists, online pedophiles and cybercriminals, the U.K. passed a comprehensive surveillance law, The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, in 2000. The law allows "the interception of communications, carrying out of surveillance, and the use of covert human intelligence sources" to help prevent crime, including terrorism.
Recent reports in the U.K. media indicate that the laws are being used for everything but terrorism investigations:

• Derby City Council, Bolton, Gateshead, and Hartlepool used surveillance to investigate dog fouling.
• Bolton Council also used the act to investigate littering.
• The London borough of Kensington and Chelsea conducted surveillance on the misuse of a disabled parking pass.
• Liverpool City Council used Ripa to identify a false claim for damages.
• Conwy Council used the law to spy on a person who was working while off sick.

Privacy activists were, unsurprisingly, up in arms. Shami Chakrabarti, director of human rights group Liberty, told the BBC that "you don't use a sledgehammer to crack a nut, nor targeted surveillance to stop a litter bug." Liberty and other groups have called for a complete review of the law and its unplanned uses.
Is this surprising? Not really. Just as we've seen in the U.S., once law enforcement and intelligence agencies are given new unchecked powers, abuse tends to happen. The more secretive and unchecked the powers, the more widespread the abuse.