Mobile ANPR cameras are also used by some police forces. These are deployed in popular locations such as shopping centres for so-called “lockdown” operations, where every vehicle entering the area is checked against records as police fish for reasons to impound cars and fine drivers. One such operation in November 2008, which was filmed for television (relevant segment starts at 21m30s), saw 369 vehicles stopped, 84 tickets issued, 51 cars seized and 12 people arrested at Bluewater shopping centre in Kent – in a single day.

It’s no longer a case of “follow that car” but “follow every car.”

ACPO defend their wholesale surveillance system by pointing to a few high-profile cases where ANPR evidence has formed part of a prosecution. They’re less keen to highlight the cases of mistaken identity, inaccurate record-keeping and official ineptitude that have left innocent people standing on the kerbside holding a ticket as an officer drives away in their vehicle. Even if these drivers manage to prove the database wrong they can end up paying hundreds of pounds in fees to get their car back – if it hasn’t been crushed.

Supporters of ANPR technology claim vehicle license-plate data is exempt from the Data Protection Act because it’s not “personal information” (it’s about the vehicle not the driver). However the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) sells access to the names and addresses of registered vehicle-keepers for £2.50p a time, making this distinction academic.

In common with the National Identity Register, National DNA Database and all the other tentacles of the database state, once this information is collected there’s nothing to stop it falling into the hands of other public or private organisations, either by accident, commercial arrangement or official decree. Wouldn’t you like to know where your partner really drives off to while you’re at work? I bet there’s a good number of private investigators who would.

The Information Commissioner’s Office is currently “working with” ACPO to determine whether the national ANPR network is “appropriate and proportionate” – which means nobody bothered to ask those questions before the system was commissioned.

Who stands up for the public interest in the rush to implement new technologies like ANPR for official convenience? I don’t recall there being a public or Parliamentary debate on giving the police these game-changing surveillance powers. Has anyone considered the down-side of collecting all this data?

Somehow I doubt it.

The use of closed-circuit television in city and town centres and public housing estates does not have a significant effect on crime, according to Home Office-funded research to be distributed to all police forces in England and Wales this summer.

This is a shame since…

Over the last decade, CCTV accounted for more than three quarters of total spending on crime prevention by the British Home Office…

The Lords report said that £500 million was spent in Britain on CCTV in the decade up to 2006, money which in the past would have gone on street lighting or neighbourhood crime prevention initiatives.

If the Home Office’s attitude to CCTV doesn’t change in the light of these findings more people will start to wonder about the nature of the Government’s surveillance agenda.

Hat tip: Glyn Moody

On separate screens a mother walked a pushchair in Belgravia, a chef emerged from a Chinatown basement clutching bin liners and a cyclist tapped the window of a Burger King restaurant.

All were being watched by one of the 160 fixed cameras connected to the control centre, or any of the dozens more “mobile” cameras with Wi-Fi connections attached to walls across the city. At the controls was Dan Brown, who supervises operators whose job it is to zoom into anything suspicious. “We’ve got cameras everywhere,” he said. “We can pretty much see everything.”

What they cannot see may be sent via instant radio message, from an army of police, shop workers and “red cap” street guides who alert the operators to any abnormal behaviour they encounter.

…

The camera zoomed in to a man in a suit until his face sharpened into focus. The man kept glancing at his watch, as though he was waiting for someone … for the most part, the job is to watch out for “suspicious” behaviour.

Wholesale surveillance of people going about their lawful business in public areas is pernicious, expensive, ineffective and frankly – given its minimal transparency, accountability or regulation – as scary as hell. If one is out taking photographs in public, waiting for a colleague or trying to attract the attention of a friend in a restaurant, one should be free to do so without wondering whether right now, someone in an underground bunker is recording one’s image in a database, classifying one as a suspect or sending in the goons to have one picked up and questioned.

Are you that mother? That chef? That cyclist? How does it feel to be watched? To be suspected? Do you feel safer or do you feel threatened?

This madness must stop. We must fix the UK CCTV problem. Now.

Today I have been explaining that I am not against CCTV- but if it is going to be used the cameras should be able to provide clear images and all of the evidence should be usable in court. Currently only 20% is usable. At the moment we just have a placebo effect for Citizen UK.

Many of the Samizdata comments focus on Davis’ support for CCTV as evidence of a less-than-liberal outlook, however I think he makes a partially valid point. I agree that the quality of images from CCTV systems needs to be sufficient to identify individuals: the evidence they collect is useless otherwise. Likewise, cameras should be installed so they are actually capable of capturing images of faces. Lenses on 10m posts look down on nothing but the tops of heads (and blouses, apparently). However, as I have previously noted, calling for better CCTV doesn’t imply support for more CCTV. This is where I too part company with Davis.

I fear the CCTV genie cannot be persuaded back into its bottle by rational argument, as public perception and the psychology of security theatre have significant bearing on the current situation, however I think we should be pressing for a massive reduction in CCTV covareage; effective regulation and licensing of schemes that can be proven useful; and improved installation- and technical standards all round.

[In our manifesto], we state there that we will invest in crime prevention through improvements to the built environment, supporting better lighting, alley gating and CCTV WHERE APPROPRIATE. It would be impossible to put CCTV on every street for example and we certainly would not want to do that. The wording “where appropriate” is key here. Where it has proven to be a deterrent for crime and most useful is in shopping precincts, car parks and “hotspots” of crime. This does make people feel safer and aids the apprehension of criminals.

While I applaud the idea of investing in environmental and street-lighting improvements, the fact is most CCTV installations are useless at preventing and detecting crime, and ineffective at reducing people’s fear of it.

We should be limiting camera surveillance to the few places – such as car parks – where it has been shown to have an impact. At the same time, the quality of CCTV images needs to be improved, as do the mechanisms for using video evidence in court. Fewer, targeted, high-quality systems complemented by good urban design and frequent visible police patrols would be a wiser way to spend council tax than mass surveillance. I hope this is what the Lib Dems have in mind when they call for more “appropriate” CCTV.