This blog is protected by ANPR cameras.
The Graun reports on automatic number plate recognition cameras turning up in Washwood Heath and Sparkbrook in Birmingham without consultation, and despite councillors being informed that they were intended to prevent the usual "anti-social behaviour, vehicle crime and drug dealing" it turns out they were in fact funded using a grant from the Terrorism and Allied Matters fund.
It's not just areas heavily populated by Muslims that these cameras are turning up though; over the last month a couple of villages near me have had signs erected informing drivers that "this village is protected by ANPR cameras". These villages are not known for being potential hotbeds of radicalism, nor are they places where any sort of crime is anything other than rare. Quite what their purpose is is therefore rather uncertain, that is if there are actually are cameras rather than just signs, as they certainly aren't visible to the naked eye. Again, like in Birmingham, there doesn't seem to have been any real consultation, just the sudden appearance of foreboding signs and presumably cameras that are far more likely to keep tabs on the locals and their movements as they are on any criminals that happen to be passing through. More than anything, one suspects that they are just further additions to the burgeoning national network, which itself was almost entirely the construct of the police rather than parliament. One for the Con-Demolition then, who after all promised that CCTV would be far more effectively regulated. Perhaps they should start with the police's pet project and its no doubt highly disproportionate cost?
It's not just areas heavily populated by Muslims that these cameras are turning up though; over the last month a couple of villages near me have had signs erected informing drivers that "this village is protected by ANPR cameras". These villages are not known for being potential hotbeds of radicalism, nor are they places where any sort of crime is anything other than rare. Quite what their purpose is is therefore rather uncertain, that is if there are actually are cameras rather than just signs, as they certainly aren't visible to the naked eye. Again, like in Birmingham, there doesn't seem to have been any real consultation, just the sudden appearance of foreboding signs and presumably cameras that are far more likely to keep tabs on the locals and their movements as they are on any criminals that happen to be passing through. More than anything, one suspects that they are just further additions to the burgeoning national network, which itself was almost entirely the construct of the police rather than parliament. One for the Con-Demolition then, who after all promised that CCTV would be far more effectively regulated. Perhaps they should start with the police's pet project and its no doubt highly disproportionate cost?
Labels: ANPR cameras, authoritarianism, CCTV, civil liberties, war against bullshit
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Thanks for this post. I noticed a couple of these signs near me and wondered what the hell ANPR cameras were. I also live in a village which is absolutely in no way besieged by crime and disorder so I have absolutely no idea what the balls these cameras are needed for. Although recently there has been a noticeable increase in the number of road scuffers pulling folks over for doing 33 in a 30 zone. Speed cameras by another name perhaps?
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Sonofajoiner |
Saturday, June 05, 2010 5:31:00 pm
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