Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by dalore 5336 days ago
> Here in the civilized world we have a fundamental right to privacy.

I live in the UK. I thought it was quite funny that he tried to compare the privacy policies by saying the UK is better. Now the UK might be better in some regards but with the amount of CCTVs abound I still say they have problems with privacy.
2 comments
jnorthrop 5336 days ago
There is a significant difference between European privacy laws and those in the US. Generally in Europe privacy is treated as a fundamental right; in the US privacy laws are implemented only when it is necessary to protect the citizens from harm by corporations or industry.
link
maximusprime 5336 days ago
Please don't pedal this nonsense.

The UK has a large amount of privately owned and operated CCTV cameras. Most are operated by private shop owners etc. They solve countless crimes every day, and deter crime.

There's also CCTV put in place by local councils, to stop anti social behavior and again, prevent crime.

You've been reading reddit too much I expect. There is no conspiracy, no centralized CCTV program where the government spies on us all.

Unlike some countries I could mention, we have a pretty low crime rate. Some of which is due to having various CCTV systems.

The UK does have a problem with speed cameras though. It's a way to generate extra revenue from the population.

link
dalore 5336 days ago
I never said there is a big central repository. There doesn't have to be for privacy to be invaded.

I would say you have a low crime rate due to social reasons, you can't just point and say it's because of CCTVs.

link
maximusprime 5336 days ago
So a ton of shop owners just installed CCTV cameras for the hell of it did they? No correlation with them doing that and shoplifting/other crime going down eh?

I'm sure councils also install CCTV cameras on the streets just for the fun of it, or to spy on people rather than to cut down anti social behavior, muggings, pickpocketing, knife crime etc.

Yes, we have a low crime rate due to our culture. But we have an even lower crime rate due to the private CCTV cameras, and council run CCTV systems.

I don't really understand how your privacy is invaded by shop owners videoing the shop to make sure people aren't stealing stuff. It's not like they make the tapes public or don't erase them after a few days...

How many breaches of trust have you heard of? Have there been cases of shop owners identifying people buying sausages and posting their mugshots online or something?

link
seabee 5336 days ago
> But we have an even lower crime rate due to the private CCTV cameras, and council run CCTV systems.

Don't stretch your assertions too far. From the reports I read (think it might have been a Home Office report) there was no significant change in crime rate, but crimes were less likely to take place where there was a CCTV camera. The criminals move on to unprotected areas, you could say.

n.b. the top comment in the thread is certainly BS. CCTV is installed in public (or quasi-public e.g. shops) areas where nobody has an expectation of privacy. If they made the situation worse, you'd have to define what 'negative privacy' could mean...

link
dalore 5336 days ago
In 2007, the UK watchdog CameraWatch claimed that the majority of CCTV cameras in the UK are operated illegally or are in breach of privacy guidelines.
link
seabee 5336 days ago
The 'privacy guidelines' in question being the Data Protection Act, which is fundamentally a set of laws related to data processing. In this case, CCTV tapes could be stolen and the cameras themselves are not always signposted.

As the linked post demonstrates, privacy issues are covered by the Act - but as far as I'm concerned, you have no privacy whether half a dozen strangers are watching you in the street or whether you're being broadcast to the whole world.

link
dspillett 5336 days ago
> The UK does have a problem with speed cameras though. It's a way to generate extra revenue from the population.

Slipping off-topic, I can't stand that line. You break the law, you get fined. Keep within the law, you don't get fined. Quite frankly if you want to hand revenue to the government via speeding go ahead. But you don't like the law campaign to have it changed, don't just ignore it then moan about being fined for ignoring it.

My issue with speed cameras is their location. They are predominantly on high-speed roads which with a few exceptions are not overly dangerous. I think we should be concentrating on residential areas particularly near schools and parks (the road past the school I used to live near is officially a 20mph zone, but I don't think many people took it at less than 30 and there was no camera or other such equipment there except on the few occasions when a motorcycle-mounted cop sat near the blind-ish corner with his radar gun).

link
sp332 5336 days ago
Some of the speed cameras are put within a few feet of a speed limit sign, so you don't have time to adjust reasonably to the new speed and they'll ticket you anyway.
link
Confusion 5336 days ago 

  You break the law, you get fined.
You really, really don't want to live in that country.
link
maximusprime 5336 days ago
So you've never broken a stupid law, like ripping a DVD?

Around 90% of the population break the speed limit. If you drive on a motorway, doing only the speed limit, you'll be holding up traffic.

When 90% of people break a law, that's a pretty sure sign that the law is bad and should be changed.

Thankfully, the law is soon to be changed, increasing the speed limit on motorways from 70 to 80. It's a start. Politicians have taken notice, and seen that the current speed laws (Put in place decades ago when cars had crappy brakes etc), are out dated.

The mobile speed cameras I see most often are hidden behind trees in areas that have a stupid speed limit (eg a stretch of road with no houses, pavements or people, but 30mph limit).

I'm not moaning about being fined - I take a lot of care not to be. I'm moaning that firstly, they are there to generate revenue, not save lives, and secondly, they actually make our roads more dangerous, with people paying attention to their speed, rather than real dangers/people/etc.

link
sp332 5336 days ago
Really? UK police disagree with you. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/06/ukcrime1 CCTVs don't prevent or help solve crimes, and there is an explicit (not even secret!) plan to implement a national CCTV database.
link
maximusprime 5336 days ago
The Guardian as a source? The Guardian is even worse than Reddit in its open bias against government, corporations, etc etc (Also that story is 3 years old. Hardly current).

The Guardian is like The Daily Mail but for the other side of the political spectrum.

The daily mail etc scare the public into thinking that immigrants/the poor/terrorists etc are going to kill them. The guardian scares the public into thinking that the government and corporations are going to kill them.

Obviously neither is true, but both sell newspapers/get readers.

link
sp332 5336 days ago
OK how about a more recent Guardian article (by Cory Doctorow)? http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/aug/17/why-cctv-do...

Bruce Schneier? https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/06/cctv_cameras....

The BBC? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/8219022.st...

A meta-study on the effectiveness of CCTVs in the UK? http://ipvideomarket.info/report/is_public_cctv_effective

link