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UN chief says UK surveillance worse than 1984

RJS (undefined) posted this on Wednesday, 26th August 2015, 14:33

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/08/uk-surveillance-worse-than-1984-says-new-un-privacy-chief/

Quote:
The newly appointed UN special rapporteur on privacy, Joseph Cannataci, has called the UK's oversight of surveillance "a rather bad joke at its citizens’ expense," and said that the situation regarding privacy is "worse" than anything George Orwell imagined in his novel 1984. Speaking to The Guardian, Cannataci said: "at least Winston [a character in Orwell's 1984] was able to go out in the countryside and go under a tree and expect there wouldn’t be any screen, as it was called. Whereas today there are many parts of the English countryside where there are more cameras than George Orwell could ever have imagined. So the situation in some cases is far worse already."

Technology has made it ridiculously easy for our governments and commercial entities to keep track of us, and also to have our private data compromised.

Be interesting to see if Mr Cannataci can do anything about it. It's easy to be blasé about privacy, but if policemen regularly knocked on your door and asked to see all your emails and browse around your computer, I doubt any of us would feel easy about it.

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RE: UN chief says UK surveillance worse than 1984

Snaps (Elite) posted this on Wednesday, 26th August 2015, 15:03

Too much CCTV and no, I don't like it.

One observation though.
It may be there but the majority of it seems to be so poor quality as to be useless or switched of/not maintained.

Snaps



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I used to be with it, but then they changed what `it` was.
Now, what I`m with isn`t it, and what`s `it` seems weird and scary

RE: UN chief says UK surveillance worse than 1984

bandicoot (Elite) posted this on Wednesday, 26th August 2015, 22:32

The worst thing about survelance using machines and data bases is that is easy to profile you and make BIG mistakes from that. 

Example, me using a Satandare cash machine, and it refused to pay out £300, and locked down my account, because I had not used that button before, as the security department told me later that I just used £50 or £100.

How dare they decide that certain buttons are not allowed because of my past habits of using a cash machine.

This sort of profiling is at its worst, as I could have been anywhere in the country and really stuck without cash because of that.

I have since switched banks.

This profiling goes on in all aspects of your life now, if it is recorded and stored. Yes we are way past 1984.

RE: UN chief says UK surveillance worse than 1984

bandicoot (Elite) posted this on Wednesday, 26th August 2015, 22:45

On the subject of CCTV,  we are now past the stage of even noticing cameras, they are part of every day life for those who were born into it. Pity!

As for there usefulness, well I agree with Snaps as they are next to useless to capture anything significant "Oh, look was that a plane that hit the pentagon" Check the CCTV footage, "oh sorry they did not see a thing, even though its a hundred and seventy feet long", he he.

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