Big Brother is watching you

Special `Big Brother' State of the Nation this month. Wasn't intended that way, it's just that's what's happening...

For instance, the Conservative Party conference was cheered by the news that the Government intends to fund another ten thousand closed circuit TV surveillance systems over the next year. Civil libertarians were assured that this hugely increased observation of the public had no sinister motives, `Only criminals would have anything to fear' our oily Home Secretary informed us. Hmmmm. An indication of the kind of criminal behaviour that the Government believes threatens our society comes this week from Weymouth in Dorset. Local police have been using video surveillance to target local criminals; these hardened miscreants have in many cases been caught bang to rights on camera, and the video evidence has proven incontrovertible. Punishment has been swift and brutal. In many cases involving no tea, and being in bed by seven.

Yes, the cutting edge of surveillance technology has succeeded in trapping under-age drinkers on tape, thereby letting their horrified parents see the full criminality of their Woodpecker-swilling offspring. You might think that the local police, who have so far nabbed 75 kids in this way, would be censured for using scarce resources is such a way, using a sledgehammer to crack a nut as it were. Especially as by all accounts local kids now enjoy the `game' even more; boozing in ever more unlikely spots to outwit the spying eye and show their growing contempt for the Law.

But no. Home Secretary Michael Howard loves the idea so much that he's invited Weymouth cop Sergeant Bernie Macey up to Whitehall to tell him all about it. Home Office sources continue to deny that stepping on the cracks in the pavement is to become a capital offence.

The use of neural networks to spot potential criminals

Nor is video surveillance the only weapon being used by the Home Office in the undeclared war on Youth. Several Police Forces are known to be using `neural network' software to examine children's backgrounds and predict which seven year old kids are likely to become criminals.

Confirmed SOTN readers will have read of the many iffy uses of neural networks in the past. Without going into too much detail, a neural network is an electronic structure that is intended to mimic the way the brain interprets data, ie by being structured as a `neural network'. In fact this mimicking is no longer performed physically by electronic components, but is simulated within a software application. It's fascinating stuff and your local library should be able to help with further reading, but for now all that matters is that neural nets are very good at picking up on subtle patterns in a data field, just like people are. Only NN's don't get bored and work very quickly, so they can be set to examine vast fields of data, like the records of the Police, the Benefits Agency, Department of Education, the Census, etc. They allow very subtle and perceptive data matching to take place.

At the moment the Police schemes are thought to be trials, only involving limited data from local regions, although no Police Force has admitted carrying out the research at all ( a claim which isn't given much credence by the fact that many in the scientific community are quite happy to discuss the work they've done for the Police...)

The idea is to look at children's school records, look at their family backgrounds, look at the backgrounds of their schoolfriends, and determine, all by computer of course, which amongst them need special Police and/or Social Services attention from an early age. The worries with this are that: firstly, it's slamming the barn door after the horses have fled. This can only treat symptoms not causes; poverty and unemployment remain, as usual, ignored. Secondly kids picked up in this way may be harmed, or tilted towards crime, precisely *because* of their selection. And thirdly, children's lives are being directed according to the whim of a machine.

Michael Howard is to chair a commitee of Ministers which will direct such research to `spot' potential criminals. Labour MP Kim Howells gave a personal, not a party, opinion (Jack Straw has not commented), saying `The words Big Brother have been spoken about many things, but this really is it.' Close but no cigar, this is just part of the story.

ID cards revisited

Polaroid look to be exposing themselves to charges of seedy exploitation. Long famed as the perfectly respectable purveyor of instant cameras to pervies who are too shy to brave the Boots Decency Inspection, they are now losing the moral high ground by becoming hooked up with Michael Howard's ID cards farrago. At the Conservative Party conference a Polaroid spokesman admitted that his company had been working with the DVLA to arrive at methods of identification verification that could be used with various types of cards. His understanding was that identity checks `similar to passport controls' would be conducted using the new cards/driving licences.

The Home Office are refusing to say when a Government decision of ID cards proper will be made, but they were keen to stress that their surveys show two thirds of the public remain in favour of compulsory ID cards.

Twyford Down Conspiracy

Just a quick one on the Twyford Down Conspiracy. Eco-activists protesting against the DoT's decision to drive a motorway cutting through the ancient downland couldn't understand the Government's absolute opposition to a tunnel through the hills. It would have cost around 20% more than the cutting, but extra security costs swallowed up that saving anyway, so why wouldn't they go for a tunnel? Now the truth can be told: because the military consider the road from London to Southampton a strategic route, and a tunnel was considered vulnerable to attack in time of war. Ye Gods, attack from who exactly? If someone was chucking nukes about then the road, be it through a tunnel or cutting would cease to exist anyway. Not that troop movements to Southampton would be needed in that kind of war anyway. So who are we talking about? The Argentinians invading the Isle of Wight? The French? Or could it be that these all-important troop movements would not be spuaddies flooding out of London, but *in*?

Done the tourist trail in London? Ever struck you what an amazing number of barracks there are? And how purposeful and defensible they look? Makes you think, eh?