Oxford City Council Mandates CCTV Cameras In Taxies by 2015 235
First time accepted submitter Beowulf878 writes "In yet another data-collection feast by the government in the UK, a local council has proposed fitting at least one CCTV camera per taxi to record every conversation. Obviously the reason given is our own safety. Thoughts?"
Surprised politicians would go for this... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm from Blackpool and, back in the day, both main parties used to have their conferences here every other year. My parents operated a taxi so they always overheard lots of gossip from the MPs they were ferrying around.
Having the goings on in the back of a taxi being recorded by default would be staggering. No politician or business person could so much as have a phone conversation under those circumstances! I bet every pissant local government hack in Oxford will be trying to justify having a private driver, paid for by the council, when this comes into force.
Re:Sydney taxis (Score:5, Interesting)
A Danish security firm says that attempted robberies went down by 80 % after they put stickers saying "taxi under camera surveillance" on cars belonging to Copenhagen taxi. Actual cameras were not allowed in taxis in Denmark at the time.
Re:Well, I have one.... (Score:4, Interesting)
And without any indication on how the video is used. Who stores the video, and how? How long is it stored? Watched on random basis or in case of reported problems only? So many unknowns here, hard to give an opinion on it.
But well who needs to know the answer to those basic questions anyway.
Re:Wow (Score:2, Interesting)
That this is flagged +5 Insightful demonstrates that the poster is not alone in never having read anything by Orwell.
Re:Well, I have one.... (Score:4, Interesting)
The most relevant opinion is from the Information Commissioner's Office, the government organisation that enforces the privacy laws:
An ICO spokeswoman said the plans were "highly intrusive and unlikely to be justified".
So it's unlikely to happen.
Other articles (linked from the main one) suggest it's the taxi drivers who want this to "protect" themselves from drunk and rowdy passengers, though I'm not sure why that requires audio recording. It's hardly going to fix the problem though.