U.K. police swamped by surveillance TV data

The police cannot deal with the amount of information generated by surveillance cameras, according to the U.K.'s Association of Chief Police Officers.

Ian Readhead, director of information for the ACPO Criminal Records Office, said this week that police are overwhelmed by the volume of such data and that one of his major concerns is that police don't have the capability to track a car in real time using the Automatic Number Plate Recognition System, which is part of the surveillance cameras' functions.

"The problem is the amount of data," said Readhead, speaking at a data protection in event in London on Wednesday. "The worry for me is that a child is kidnapped in Kent, and (the car) goes through a number of cameras, not being picked up."

The plate recognition system uses optical character recognition to convert digital pictures of car number plates into characters, which are then held in a list. The technology was launched in part to aid the tracking of suspects, but, according to Readhead, there is simply too much information for the police to be able to use.

The U.K. has about 4 million surveillance cameras in use.

Dominic Grieve, the Conservative party's "shadow" home secretary, said that the efficacy of closed-circuit TV as a crime fighting tool is dubious and that police use of CCTV is hampered by lack of resources.

"CCTV provides evidence, but evidence firstly doesn't prevent crime, and secondly in many cases the police don't have the time or resources to look at CCTV (footage)," Grieve said. "In fighting crime, mass surveillance through CCTV is highly questionable."

Michael Wills, the minister of state for the Justice Ministry, said at the same conference that surveillance cameras have public support.

"I don't believe CCTV is a mistake. My constituents are begging for it," said Wills. "We are living in a very rapidly changing world. Technology is driving that (change); it's not because the government is hell-bent on controlling everyone."

In February, a House of Lords committee in the U.K.

Tom Espiner of ZDNet UK reported from London.

[mjconver]

Makes sense. 99.99% of the video traffic is harmless pictures of honest people. Who's going to sit and watch for the .01% of crime.

Maybe they should take a tip from Disney, which recently stopped watching for co-ed flashers...

[smallvoice]

No amount of cameras nor police units will prevent crimes. The root problem is the heart. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. Mark 7:21-22.
We all need to get down on our knees, search the Scripture, repent of our sins, and ask the Lord to forgive us our sins in the name of Jesus.

[terminalblue]

uh, ok.

[Michichael]

Or we can just hope that the bible thumpers drink the kool-aid when they see the comets. :3

[Nebuchadnezzer]

While I was on my knees asking forgivenss, praying with my eyes closed, somebody stole my cycle !

[Dalkorian]

Right, I'm sure my dropping down to my knees will prevent others from doing "evil". It's stunning how "uneducated" Christians actually are!

[disco-legend-zeke]

The #1 deterrant to crime is a high probability of being caught.

Though the data bloat generated by 3 million camers is more than staggering, if manpower is needed to watch everyday events, a software solution is needed.

Simple things like carrying a weapon, lighting a fire, and even having dishonest thoughts (honest... you walk a different way when you have evil intent) are identifyable.

And we need technology like this for when the machines take over. Its just a few lines of code to dispatch a sniper-chopper to the scene before you get there.

WIDE SHOT, EXTERIOR. Hero and buddies watch in horror as 3000 sniper copters rise from below the horizon.

[Hunnter2k3]

Start getting cameras out that can see through clothes. (yes, they exist)
That'll stop crime ... and everyone else from going out.
PROBLEM SOLVED.

I can understand that looking through loads of recordings from a large period is hard work, but why would it be so hard for something in a very specific time frame?
Say someone's car was stolen, you know roughly what day it was stolen, and where it was, as well as what it looks like.
Given that information, you go find tape for location A for yesterday, and go through it at triple (or more) speed, waiting till the car is gone, then you just rewind it a little bit.
Not that it would probably matter, i've seen some CCTV footage and it looks terrible. (quality-wise)

[Captain Bebops]

How sad that the home of George Orwell should implement such Orwellian practices. They must have a lot of paranoid officials in the UK. Unfortunately we also have them here too, like Dick Cheney. They seem to see terrorists everywhere.

[byronlord00]

How Sad Indeed.
Orwell's most famous work...1984...to which you refer was a warning about LIBERALISM run amok. Please read Mr. Orwell's own autobiographical material on the matter.
As a true genius, Mr. Orwell also considered the consequences of his actions and how they might be exploited.
Dick Cheney was never a problem; however, Barack Obama is. Repressive regimes are easily overthrown but everyone is always willing to give up just a little bit more of their personal liberty...for the good of all.

[byl01]

Reminds me of that old joke: Somewhere in the middle of the ocean, there is a huge island. In the middle of that huge island, there is a huge swamp. And in the middle of that huge swamp, a small toad is sitting and saying: "What the h#ll do I need all this for?"

[libertyforall1776]

Enough big brother already -- the united States should not emulate the socialist countries of Europe and elsewhere.

[unknown unknown]

I am glad they're starting to see that more is not necessarily better. It just makes looking for relevant information even more like look for the proverbial needle in a hay stack.

[monkeyfun14]

Hmm I wonder how much power they could save if they got rid of these things.

20w*4mil = 80million watts of power wasted on watching normal people do normal things.

[Eddie-c]

What the govt in England is too stupid to realise is that they could solve their un-employment problem instantly if they just had the un-employed watching this stuff.

[byronlord00]

This simply confirms what many sociologists and intelligence experts have been saying all along.
Many who are worried about the real "Big Brother" almost welcomed the introduction of more and more cameras. The massive amounts of input create a "white noise" in which nothing is distinguishable and folks can be free to move about their daily lives.
Chalk up one for the guys at the CIA. They told us we didn't listen. Read the white papers not the Washington Post.

[Harrison912]

As a web site owner of safety and security products, I applaud the UK for using CCTV to help with crime, however, it sounds like they took a good thing and went too far. Who ever sold them that many cameras was some firecraker salesman! It sounds like they need to scale back the number of cameras to the ones in the most critical locations and use some sort of software like disco-legend-zeke suggested to make searches more productive when they actually need to look at footage. Thanks, Tom, for ths story.

[tomaska]

This is great news, techology can't save the internation crims ... lol