It's a technology. What you could do with it, and what you should do with it are completely different things.

If you follow the links there is a lot of information about the trial, including a whole series of documents identifying the legal framework that authorises LFR, including rationale under GDPR, Data Protection etc.

Of course, this technology could be used for bad purposes. But within a democracy, policing happens with the consent of the people, expressed through various channels including legal (parliament and local government) and police commissioners. What is interesting is the way that these frameworks are used to constrain the purpose and extent of this processing. For example, at the moment the images on the watchlist can only be drawn from custody images.

The police already have powers to seize CCTV and door-cam imagery in order to investigate crime. They need a warrant from a judge - so it isn't justified without good reason such as serious crimes. This is the way you constrain these things - you put the regulatory framework around them. You can't put the technology back in the box, so you put rules and expectations around how it is used.

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krisbolton 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This. It's all within a democratic and legal framework, from GDPR to organisational policies. The source is the police themselves informing the public of the trial. The actual camera setup is bright yellow in the middle of the concourse, it's not hidden. They haven't hidden this technology, a private company hasn't deployed this technology. As citizens you have some control. It's probably not perfect, but there's humans in the loop. You have recourse to complain, to write to your PM, to take a different route (because they are pre-warning you). This IS democracy.

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ExoticPearTree 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The UK stopped being a democracy a long time ago.

In the UK if you keep your mouth shut during an investigation, it may harm your defense. There is zero right against self-incrimination. It is also the place where you can be jailed for not providing the PIN to your phone. I could go on.

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steve_gh 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

How does that make us not a democracy? You are confusing the constitutionally based US system with the parliamentary based UK system. They work differently. We have elections typically every 4-5 years and elect a new government. That's the democracy bit. The laws that our elected representatives make are sometimes good, and sometimes bad. But they are made by the people we elected.

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ExoticPearTree 11 hours ago | parent [-]

So what you are saying is this is what you want as citizens, to be surveilled and tracked by police 24/7?

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steve_gh 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

My point is that the technology exists, for good or ill, and we cannot put the genie back in the bottle.

What we can do, and should do as a society, is decide on how that technology should be used. And that means regulating it, in the same way that we regulate other technologies. For example, we regulate cars. Not just who can use them, but how they have to be constructed too. And we also place limits on how the authorities can use them, for example the rules that the police must obey when in an emergency response situation.

We are a democracy, so these rules are made by the people we have elected. so when it comes down to it, yes, this is what we as a people have asked for. And we are responsible for the conditions that the police can use this technology under.

FWIW, the capabilities and resources that the police have to track us 24/7 are an order of magnitude less than Google or Meta has. And they are an awful lot less accountable.

	▲	throw-the-towel 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> the capabilities and resources that the police have to track us 24/7 are an order of magnitude less than Google or Meta has. This will be a good argument when Google or Meta are able to arrest you.

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Nursie 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I mean, quite a lot of people want that or think they want it in many Western societies. They want the police to be able to find criminals, they want their kids kept off social media, they want terrorists' comms to be intercepted, they want 'immigrants' to not be able to claim benefits, they want voters to be required to produce ID, they want all manner of joined-up information state capabilities and they don't give a shit if they're surveilled and caught up in it until/unless it bites them in the ass.

And the thing is that they're not necessarily wrong to want some of those things, but they don't understand or don't care about collateral damage or what you might perceive as a lack of freedom. So they will happily vote for it.

Democracies vote to shoot themselves in the foot all the time. Look around you.

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dofm 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> In the UK if you keep your mouth shut during an investigation, it may harm your defense. There is zero right against self-incrimination.

By "may harm your defence" what is meant is that Miranda was modified to inform people who are arrested that magistrates and juries are fully allowed to infer that you might be seeking to mislead the court if you didn't tell the police something significant that you later rely on as a defence in court. You're still allowed to do it, and they are allowed to conclude it is sketchy. That's the point of the modification.

Juries do and did this anyway.

The modified Miranda doesn't say you have no right against self-incrimination; it now warns you that if something is crucial to your defence it might be in your interest to mention it so the jury doesn't think you are trying to shine them on.

It's important to understand that this happens in the context of a country that does not have a plea bargaining mechanism. Cases go to court if it is in the public interest that they do (and the police don't decide this). But you can still no-comment your way through an interview and you aren't going to be bullied by a prosecutor into accepting a plea deal.

	▲	anigbrowl 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Miranda is an American case and has no relevance to UK law, the precedents aren't interchangeable.

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krisbolton 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This just isn't true... you've heard of "no comment" right? And the ability for the police to invoke the requirement for you to provide your PIN is behind the tests of specific legislation. You're not automatically required to provide it.

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_fw 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You WILL be charged for not giving the PIN to your phone in an investigation. It’s a strict liability offence which means there’s no legal defence.

The only realistic protection here is a “decoy” partition, a partition that provides access to a separate installation of the OS. That gives the device owner plausible deniability that their real system even exists.

	▲	dofm 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> You WILL be charged for not giving the PIN to your phone in an investigation. It’s a strict liability offence which means there’s no legal defence. Again, no, not just "in an investigation". It has to be an investigation that has reached the point where they have gone to a judge and got permission to serve written notice. The judge will ask them if there is a necessary and proportionate reason. There is then a timeframe in which you have to respond. Police can't simply demand your PIN and charge you if you don't comply.