New crimes, future crime, future freedom ?
I took the following picture on his mobile phone last week, as I had a few minutes to kill before a meeting. It shows the defunct Woolworths and soon to be defunct Marks and Spencers above in Woking.
But what I wasn't expecting was to be challenged by a security guard and told that you couldn't take pictures inside the shopping centre ( though pictures of shop windows were OK ), but I was.
He was very polite, friendly and even apologetic so I thought there was no point in giving the messenger a hard time.
But this is where things are going. Because you could carry out a crime you are now being prevented from certain actions. The business of photographing police officers is another example. (This will provide an almost universal clause for harassment to be justified of photographers when ever law enforcement want to).
However, it would be churlish not to admit their are future problems. What if people uploaded pictures of police officers on the Web - future face recognition software could provide instant identification and cross referenced the home addresses of such people, leading them wide open to intimidation.
The only problem with this line is that it applies to all of us, and the most likely organisation to do it is the state. Access to state information is being ever increased and we have to assume that criminal or other illegal organisations would find it little trouble to access this information.
The surveillance society isn't going to go away. What we need is a new way of living with it and keeping our freedom. The luddite refusal to accept change isn't working, so what we need is a better legal and dare I say it consitutional frame work.
But what I wasn't expecting was to be challenged by a security guard and told that you couldn't take pictures inside the shopping centre ( though pictures of shop windows were OK ), but I was.
He was very polite, friendly and even apologetic so I thought there was no point in giving the messenger a hard time.
But this is where things are going. Because you could carry out a crime you are now being prevented from certain actions. The business of photographing police officers is another example. (This will provide an almost universal clause for harassment to be justified of photographers when ever law enforcement want to).
However, it would be churlish not to admit their are future problems. What if people uploaded pictures of police officers on the Web - future face recognition software could provide instant identification and cross referenced the home addresses of such people, leading them wide open to intimidation.
The only problem with this line is that it applies to all of us, and the most likely organisation to do it is the state. Access to state information is being ever increased and we have to assume that criminal or other illegal organisations would find it little trouble to access this information.
The surveillance society isn't going to go away. What we need is a new way of living with it and keeping our freedom. The luddite refusal to accept change isn't working, so what we need is a better legal and dare I say it consitutional frame work.
