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I don’t mind that - if someone wants to tap Joe Bloggs’ phone then that’s fine. Get a court order with evidence that he might be doing something wrong

It’s scalable surveillance that worries me. Suddenly cctv which is pulled in case of a crime becomes constantly monitored, with face, gait, clothing, and other types of automated recognition, gathering data on everyone, pumping that data into pattern matchers.

But the U.K. population love it.

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This is the dark HN fantasy of scaleable British panopticon surveillance again.

The police have surprisingly little constantly available CCTV. Police and national government control a minuscule fraction of the CCTV in the UK. (Local government a bit more, but it’s town centre anti-nuisance stuff —- pickpockets —- and a few secure buildings, and the police do not have routine access to it). There isn’t the money, the intent or the legal framework to so what you’re suggesting, and nor, I would say, do we “love it”.

Which means they get all the downsides, and none of the upsides...

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