The home secretary has unveiled sweeping reforms billed as the biggest policing overhaul in 200 years
    • ArmchairAce1944@discuss.onlineOPEnglish
      8·
      11 hours ago

      It is actually worse. In the novel that kind of surveillance was primarily for party members (Winston Smith was around mid-level) regular civilians, the Proles, were not surveilled as heavily. They were kept entertained by abundant football games and cheap beer and cigarettes.

  • Simulation6@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    2·
    10 hours ago

    In some books they mess up the facial recognition cameras by applying some makeup that makes the cameras see them as someone else. Is that possible and would it be possible to have it scan as the Guy Faulks madk?

    • ArmchairAce1944@discuss.onlineOPEnglish
      2·
      9 hours ago

      They will either adjust or outright ban certain kinds of makeup. They will make the law so vague so they can selectively enforce it.

  • melsaskca@lemmy.caEnglish
    2·
    12 hours ago

    We need a string of national web cams covering all areas of the country where each citizen has access to at anytime of the day or night. Wouldn’t be hard. Now the authorities and the citizenry can both keep their eye on each other.

    • ArmchairAce1944@discuss.onlineOPEnglish
      11·
      11 hours ago

      Nope. You are watched. They watch you. Remember their shit about banning encryption for everyone but politicians and the military? That is the point.

      • melsaskca@lemmy.caEnglish
        1·
        11 hours ago

        So you disagree that surveillance can be a two-way street? Seems extreme. If we only had some sort of trustworthy group, who we elect, managing affairs on our behalf. /s

  • Darkcoffee@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    59·
    1 day ago

    Absolutely disgusting. It’s like Labour wants to make sure they lose the next election… But to who would they lose? The conservatives who like this stuff too?

    England is off my list to visit, as a Canadian, I take pride in the fact that facial recognition is illegal in most instances *here.

  • Armand1@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8·
    1 day ago

    Has anyone here actually read the article? As far as I can tell, facial recognition is being increased in availability, but it was already in use.

    Every police force in the country will be able to use live facial recognition vans, with the number of vans set to rise from ten to 50.

    It’s also worth noting that in the UK for a very long time now any data that is not E2EE can be seized by the government from companies without the consent of their users if a warrant is issued. That’s obviously bad but nothing new.

    It sounds like what’s actually new here is that the police is becoming more centralised and organised. Instead of a lot of smaller departments in local areas with lack of expertise, more centralised organisations will do the policing.

    The article covers some pros and cons from different people’s perspectives.

    • There might end up being more policing in cities and less in rural areas.
    • There might be some downsizing of policies forces
    • Police forces may be less accountable as they grow.
    • Police forces believe they will be better equipped to tackle cybercrime.

    Overall, to me, this seems like a generally negative move. I don’t want the police to spy on people, and I want them to be more knowledgeable about their local area and more accountable to their people. It does look like there might be more surveillance, and that’s bad too.

    Please read don’t take headlines for granted.

    • ArmchairAce1944@discuss.onlineOPEnglish
      1·
      11 hours ago

      Yes, facial recognition cameras and ‘intention detectors’ have been around for almost 12 or 14 years now in the UK. But they are massively increasingly them AND making them more active. Like before you still could go into most places without major ID. Now you’ll need a face scan for many places and probably fingerprints and DNA real soon.

  • reddig33@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    1 day ago

    Don’t do it. Do you see what’s going on in the US right now? All it takes is one bad regime coming to power to abuse the hell out of these kinds of tools.

  • U7826391786239@lemmy.zipEnglish
    111·
    1 day ago

    10 years ago i would have never believed UK would have their own Schutzstaffel, and that it would be AI

    today i’m not surprised by literally any shitty thing that happens

    • ArmchairAce1944@discuss.onlineOPEnglish
      131·
      1 day ago

      I hate to say it, but I remember around 2000 the UK being called the most surveilled country in Europe due to massive numbers of cameras. I thought it was bad back then, but I had no idea how much worse it would be.

      • phutatorius@lemmy.zipEnglish
        1·
        12 hours ago

        Until Flock, the vast majority of those cameras were privately owned and not integrated into any larger network. If the police wanted camera data, they had to ask businesses or homeowners, and there was no regulation of data retention, so if they wiped their recordings after 48 hours, there was nothing the police could do about it.

        It’s the aggregators of that data that are the real risk, not doorbell cams or shopkeepers trying to limit shoplifting or vandalism.

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.caEnglish
    3·
    1 day ago

    Wow, the UK is speed running after the US, only less clowny

    At least in the US there are finally some protests. When is the UK going to stand up for their rights?

  • Victor@lemmy.worldEnglish
    41·
    1 day ago

    Nation-wide iiiin the UK, I assume, going by the URL. Important to include which country, I feel.