UK to get even more Big Brother with hovering drones
posted May 21st 2007 11:16AM
With literally hundreds of thousands of cameras -- some sporting speakers and microphones -- trained on its poor citizens from the moment they step out of the house in the morning until their hasty retreat inside at night, we're not sure why the UK needs yet another set of eyes scoping out so-called 'anti-social behaviour' among the populace, but that isn't stopping the vanguard of Big Brother technology from deploying its first unmanned police drone next month. In what is being perhaps optimistically billed as just a three-month trial, Merseyside police will unleash a one-meter wide, night-vision camera-equipped mini-helicopter into the skies (up to 500-meters high) above their jurisdiction, and task it with gathering evidence for court cases as well as the less glamorous job of monitoring traffic congestion. Originally built for the military by a Germany company and called the 'hicam microdrone,' these repurposed mechanical bobbies can either be controlled by an operator via remote or set to patrol autonomously using their built-in GPS nav systems. You'll recall that a similar system being considered by the L.A. County Sheriff's Department was shot down by the FAA around this time last year, proving once again that up-and-coming British criminals could probably minimize their risks of incarceration by making the move Stateside.
[Via The Register, pic courtesy of microdrones GmbH, thanks Paul J. and rastrus]
Nineteen Eighty-Four was published in 1949 and was written as a warning against the perversion of socialism by totalitarian states, it was written in post-war fear. The fact that technology was used by the state in this *fictional* situation for this monitoring was simply genius on Orwell's part.
If you recall the picture painted is that of a socialist state that seizes power by nationalising everything and then concentrating the control of this universal wealth in the hands of a small few (Orwell calls it "collective oligarchy").
The UK is, at the moment witnessing life under a controlling, yes, but most defiantly perfect centre government. The trend is to slowly privatise our most precious national assets, such as our schools and the NHS, not nationalise them. The labour government is mildly socialist in ideals but conservative in action, hence the creation of a perceived nanny state through legislation etc but a conservative lean in terms of economics.
My current point: that George Orwell wrote a book about the dangers of state surveillance of the individual before the word CCTV had been invented, and he certainly wasn't writing a book about the current situation within the UK, no matter how people wish to believe it the ideas behind the current CCTV "epidemic" are most defiantly benign.
My original point:
people in the UK are generally ambivalent to CCTV, many probably aren't even aware of the huge numbers of cameras watching them, and many others probably feel safer walking home knowing that if anything happens, there will be filmed evidence. The UK population is far less wary of the intentions of the state, a nationalisation of health care and until relatively recently the railways, as well as the existence of an extensive social care system could be posited as evidence of this.
Engadget is not representative of the general UK population because most of its readers are reasonably educated a tech savvy and are aware of what could occur
The US fosters, in my humble opinion, a frontier attitude that they are free agents and the state should have as little as possible to do with individual lives, at least when it comes to things like CCTV etc.
@Papa24: your statistics (if true) are a little unfair as much of the worlds population live in extra urban areas, many without basic clean water, let alone the electricity needed to power CCTV cameras. Figures as the percentage of Urban population in MEDC's (or whatever "1st World" countries are called these days) would probably be more representative, although i expect that the UK still has more than its fair share of CCTV cameras/coverage etc.
@alex: have you even read "Nineteen Eighty-Four"? because if you have i think you have missed the point of the book. It is not predictive, it is a story.
I for one welcome our flying police robot overlords.
With a history of abuse stateside by law enforcement, it is hard to let them have these cool gadgets. Plus in England, you are all royal subjects, not citizens. So you don't have the same rights we do stateside.
Now, couple these flying peeping Toms with the VeriChip technology which is blossoming in the US and you'll have instant flying identification drones. It won't matter that the video is poor. The drone will activate you're implanted chip and your full data file will be made available.
Then, add an onboard wired taser to the drone and it will be able to shoot electrodes into the subject, disable them and hold them until uniformed officers arrive. This would be just great for knocking down a known pedophile who is hanging around a school... or a grandma who's giving candy to the neighborhood kids... or someone who refuses to vote in "The Party System".
But what are the trade-offs? No privacy and no autonomy. What about when you're out of camera view? Oh, they're fixing that up right now. The GPS satellites will keep tabs on you via your cell phone. Everyone will need to have one once the "terrorists" have taken out the fixed wire phone system. Eventually the point will be reached when it will be a crime to go missing from the system for more than a moment or so.
You just sit there and laugh, I dare you. Then, when you stand in front of the pre-crime prevention tribunal accused of "The tendancy for public indecency and sexual violence", because you lovingly swatted your wife's jean clad booty in public, you may remember this day.
You Brits never should have surrendered your guns.
For now, you shall surrender your dignity.
I live in Liverpool, so it will be interesting to see these hovering around. Also my money is on the police helicopter flying into this as it has a very noisy habit of zooming around very low all weekend. Also I wonder if the signal to control it is encrypted? Anyway if I see anything I will let you know.
I'm UK, well aware that I'm filmed many times a day around my town (Harrogate)and the only time I encounter negative opinion about surveillance is in sensationalist tabloid headlines and here. I grant you that Harrogate has never been a hotbed of criminal activity which is fantastic, but since they started installing cameras it has become even better and it's in no small part THANKS to this fact. So stop complaining about cameras in low crime areas please - it has been shown to work here at least combined with an effective police presence.
Ok, the cameras aren't going to physically stop a crime but the vast majority of people have more sense than to commit a crime when it's likely to be filmed - chances are they'll be caught. Good! I can go out, get ratted and wander home happy and safe. My daughter is being looked out for when I'm not there. The cameras are live monitored so we don't NEED police on every corner, they can go where they're needed.
I feel my liberty is INCREASED as I don't have to worry quite so much about street crime - I'd rather have cops than robbers. What are you all afraid of? What do you think it's going to stop you doing? Are you trying to hide something?
Big ups to the party! Don't make me report you :-)
I thought the drone is "just" in a 3 month trail?
http://www.locked.de/en/news/208.html
That looks a lot like those flying cameras in Half Life 2
Sweet, just seen it shoot over head. It was being controlled by the police helicopter as well. Very cool!!!
interestingly enough, if you live in or near a big city in the uk its near enough fact that at any one point in the day you will be showing up on at least 3 cctv cameras, at least one of which may not be government owned...
personaly i would rather be left to my own devices, its amazing the difference in living here to living in the states (my fathers from michigan).
almost a liberating experience when you step off the plane and realise that there aren't a dozen coppers watching you from a small box back at HQ...