Hidden ANPR Cameras For Hertfordshire Town
Royston to be turned into 'ring of steel' with cameras watching all routes in and out
Not a hidden camera, not near Royston
Hidden Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras will be installed by the end of April, recording the details of every vehicle entering and leaving the town. The cameras will store the registration details of anyone who drives through the town on a database in London for up to five years.
The scheme is being trumpeted by its creators as a way to make Royston the safest town in Hertfordshire and will be used to help track the movements of known criminals.
The police, North Hertfordshire District Council (NHDC) and regeneration company Royston First are keen to reassure that the ANPRs won't be used to keep tabs on the general public, but there are inevitable concerns about personal privacy and the amount of data being stored.
The scheme's creators may have the public's best intentions at heart, and those who have nothing to hide should have nothing to fear, as they say. But talk of 'rings of steel' does sound alarmingly Draconian. And hidden cameras do seem to smack of underhand motives.
PH editor Chris-R certainly thinks so - but then he does have a bit of an anti-Big Brother thing. His worries are echoed by spokes man for pressure group No CCTV, Charles Farrier. "It is a hugely worrying development," he told the Royston Weekly News. "It has been developed with no public scrutiny and government legislation. This is the biggest surveillance network that the British public have never heard of."
So what do you think? Is it nothing to worry about if you've got nothing to hide? Or is it only a matter of time before we're all talking in Newspeak and drinking Victory gin?
Image: Rob Purvis
If your car gets stolen and its picked up in Royston because of this ANPR system, you'll soon sing its praises
What if one of your children gets kidnapped and the suspects car is picked up on this ANPR system?
Its not going to be watching you through your living room window
As mentioned above, we've had this system on the main Motorway junctions for Stevenage for years and im still waiting for my letter in the post from Stevenage Police informing me my tax disc is slightly wonky
Its going to store information on what colour shirt you were wearing, what you ate for dinner, what grot mag you buy from the shops?
The most it will store is what time you left Royston and what car you were in when you had the pleasure of escaping it
writing my dissertation on the British security policy. In the course
of my research I have been exploring something called Project
Champion, a scheme in birmingham to monitor particular communities
through the implementation of similar technologies to the ones you are
due to employ in Royston, the 'Ring of Steel' as it were.
I am not an activist or on a mission to wind back the state, I am
simply a concerned citizen, having uncovered many frightening breaches
of our civil liberties in the course of my research. I am convinced It
is a fundamental breach of a citizens civil and human rights to
monitored covertly without the suspicion of committing a crime. These
proposal must be resisted at all costs. The counter-argument of
nothing to hide, nothing to fear is irrelevant for a number of
reasons:
Firstly, it ignores the fundamental liberal principle of liberty over
authority, in the sense that someone should only have their movements
monitored, and therefore controlled, if they are explicitly a threat.
Secondly, If an entire community the looming spectre of the
Panopticon, as elucidated by Michel Foucault, rears it's ugly head
once more, if one is being monitored, regardless of intentions, one
will negatively alter their behaviour. If for example you are working,
would you work more effectively with your boss watching your every
action, I would suggest not. Once again the parameters being set at
tracking 'known criminals' does not hold true. We often see the best
laid plans, sometimes with entirely good intentions, being exploited
over time for other purposes.
Along with Project Champion, the State is setting a dangerous
precedent and moving the goal posts in a dangerous and irreversible
manner. I am concerned, and I dare say frightened, by the new
architecture of surveillance monitoring the liberal internal space we
used to hold so dear. Sometimes it is a depressing and frightening
country to be a citizen in. I was always proud of my national
identity, not in some simplistic, jingoistic way, but because I
appreciated the long held liberal values of the state. For gods sake
don't make the mistake of removing what it is to be a British citizen.
Plus if they would use it to help catch some ****wits without insurance all the better.
Why should I hand over thousands of my hard earned and then have someone who thinks he's above the law crash into me and leave me to pick up the pieces(everyone needs a little rant now and again).
writing my dissertation on the British security policy. In the course
of my research I have been exploring something called Project
Champion, a scheme in birmingham to monitor particular communities
through the implementation of similar technologies to the ones you are
due to employ in Royston, the 'Ring of Steel' as it were.
I am not an activist or on a mission to wind back the state, I am
simply a concerned citizen, having uncovered many frightening breaches
of our civil liberties in the course of my research. I am convinced It
is a fundamental breach of a citizens civil and human rights to
monitored covertly without the suspicion of committing a crime. These
proposal must be resisted at all costs. The counter-argument of
nothing to hide, nothing to fear is irrelevant for a number of
reasons:
Firstly, it ignores the fundamental liberal principle of liberty over
authority, in the sense that someone should only have their movements
monitored, and therefore controlled, if they are explicitly a threat.
Secondly, If an entire community the looming spectre of the
Panopticon, as elucidated by Michel Foucault, rears it's ugly head
once more, if one is being monitored, regardless of intentions, one
will negatively alter their behaviour. If for example you are working,
would you work more effectively with your boss watching your every
action, I would suggest not. Once again the parameters being set at
tracking 'known criminals' does not hold true. We often see the best
laid plans, sometimes with entirely good intentions, being exploited
over time for other purposes.
Along with Project Champion, the State is setting a dangerous
precedent and moving the goal posts in a dangerous and irreversible
manner. I am concerned, and I dare say frightened, by the new
architecture of surveillance monitoring the liberal internal space we
used to hold so dear. Sometimes it is a depressing and frightening
country to be a citizen in. I was always proud of my national
identity, not in some simplistic, jingoistic way, but because I
appreciated the long held liberal values of the state. For gods sake
don't make the mistake of removing what it is to be a British citizen.
Its going to store information on what colour shirt you were wearing, what you ate for dinner, what grot mag you buy from the shops?
The most it will store is what time you left Royston and what car you were in when you had the pleasure of escaping it
Gassing Station | Motoring News | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff