policing – Page 4

British cops still haven’t got the message about photography

There is a disturbing film and story on The Guardian site which shows two London Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) hassling an Italian art student, Simona Bonomo, largely, it seems to me, because she wasn’t submissive towards them and stood up for herself. This comes several months after the Home Office issued new guidelines, yet it looks like photography and filming is still being treated as if it is inherently suspicious – as Marc Vallée points out.

The additional issue is that PCSOs are not even proper trained police officers in the first place, yet they increasingly seem to be under the impression that they can make the kind of judgements that senior police officers should be making. There need to be some changes to UK law here (amongst many of course!) – one to replace Section 44 of the Terrorism Act, since it seems clear that it can’t be interpreted appropriately, and secondly, the powers of PCSOs need to more carefully delineated and restricted.

For those involved in photography, video or film-making, in the UK or nearby, there will be a mass photography action, “I’m a Photographer Not a Terrorist!”, on January 23rd at 12 Noon, Trafalgar Square in London.

Watching Them Watching You

The city government of Rio de Janeiro has voted 46 to 3 in favour of installing video surveillance cameras inside all new police vehicles, and overridden the veto of the Governor, Sergio Cabral.

Cabral, who is otherwise all in favour of video surveillance, did everything he could to stop this law, but in vain. The reason that the pro-police governor is so against this particular law and order measure is that the cameras are supposed to be installed not simply to ‘protect’ police officers but also to prevent abuse of power, corrupt practice and police violence against suspects. This is a huge issue in Rio (and Brazil more generally), and we saw a good example of this recently with the inhumane actions by officers after the fatal assault on Evandro, the founder of Afro-Reggae.

However, I do wonder how officers will take this development, how the cameras will be used in practice, and how many of them will conveniently experience technical failures at important moments…

(Thanks to Paola Barreto Leblanc for the heads up)

The Vancouver Statement on the 2010 Winter Olympics

Following recent discussion, a number of leading surveillance researchers have signed and issued the following ‘Vancouver Statement’ of which I did the first draft (followed by multiple revisions from many hands!). If you are a researcher who has done any work on mega-event security and surveillance, and agree with the statement, you are encouraged to send your name and affiliation to Adam Molnar at UVic. It is being press-released and hopefully discussed in the BC Legislative Assembly.

The Vancouver Statement of Surveillance, Security and Privacy Researchers about the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games

As researchers from Canada and the wider world, who are conducting research on the global security dynamics of mega-events, we agree:

that the Olympic Games should be a celebration of human achievement, friendship and trust between people and nations.

However, having analysed past and planned Olympics and other mega events, from a variety of historical and international perspectives, we recognise:

that recent Games have increasingly taken place in and contributed to a climate of fear, heightened security and surveillance; and
that this has often been to the detriment of democracy, transparency and human rights, with serious implications for international, national and local norms and laws.

Therefore, we ask the City of Vancouver, the Province of British Columbia and the Government of Canada:

to moderate the escalation of security measures for Vancouver 2010 and to strive to respect the true spirit of the event;
to be as open as possible about the necessary security and surveillance practices and rationales;
to withdraw temporary bylaws that restrict Charter rights of freedom of speech and assembly;
to work constructively with the Provincial and Federal Privacy Commissioners;
to respect the rights of all individuals and groups, whether they be local people or visitors, and pay particular attention to the impacts on vulnerable people;
to conduct a full, independent public assessment of the security and surveillance measures, once the Games are over, addressing their costs (financial and otherwise), their effectiveness, and lessons to be learned for future mega-events;
not to assume a permanent legacy of increased video surveillance and hardened security measures in the Vancouver/Whistler area, and to have full and open public discussion on any such proposed legacy.

We hope that these recommendations will contribute to a unique and positive Olympic legacy by which Vancouver, British Columbia and Canada will be remembered for setting the highest ethical standards.

For further information, contact:

Richard Smith, tel: 778-782-5116; or Colin Bennett

And there’s now more on Richard’s blog!

UK DNA Database Criticised by Report

The UK’s DNA database, already under fire by the European Court of Human Right for retaining samples and data from innocent people, has now been lambasted in a report by the government’s own genetics watchdog. The Human Genetics Commission.

The report, called Nothing to Hide, Nothing to Fear? contains a numbers of serious criticisms, most notably the finding that police forces around Britain are routinely arresting people simply in order to obtain their DNA. Almost a million innocent people, including many children, are now on the database, and the ECHR ruling has finally prompted the government to make some minor concessions, such as keeping the DNA of innocent people for 6 years as opposed to 12, but there appears to have been no fundamental change in police practice, nor any change in the instructions given to local forces on best practice.

It’s main recommendations are:

that there should be a parliamentary debate about the recording of what it calls ‘unconvicted’ people;
that because the purpose of the database has shifted over time, there should be constraints set out in new primary legislation;
that “robust evidence of the ‘forensic utility’ of the database should be produced to justify the resource cost and interference with individual privacy it represents”; and,
that there should be an independent oversight board and appeals board to consider removal of profiles; and transparency over data and other issues.

These are all laudable, but I really start to question their judgement in using the term ‘unconvicted people’. British law has always worked on the principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty’. People are therefore ‘innocent’ until they have a conviction. The term ‘unconvicted’ seems to imply that innocence is no longer an assumption, and that the working hypothesis is that everyone is either guilty or not yet (therefore, potentially) guilty. This is what results from the normalisation of surveillance in everyday life, and it’s one thing we warned most strongly against in our own Report on the Surveillance Society back in 2006. When even critical reports start using language that reflects the worldview of the people they are criticising, you have to be concerned.

Calling people ‘unconvicted’ and not ‘innocent’ matters.

Everyday prejudices mean Canadians end up on watchlists

Another great audit report from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner here in Canada, investigating the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (Fintrac) has just been released. Fintrac, created in 2001 in the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act and now with even more extended powers, operates a databases which is supposed to contain details of those suspected of supporting terrorism or money laundering (often on behalf of major criminal and terrorist groups).

However, there is a good story in The Globe and Mail today which leads on the most worrying aspect identified by the audit, which is that in many cases, the Fintrac database is massively overreliant on unsubstantiated suspicions from low-level functionaries in banks, insurance firms and credit agencies. Some of these ‘suspicions’ were clearly simple prejudice as they appeared to be based entirely on ethnicity. Part of the problem is that there are no clear guidelines as to what constitutes a reasonable suspicion in the legislation.

But being put on the database can have serious consequences, firstly because of the potential penalties involved (up to $2m CAN fines and 5-years imprisonment) and secondly, because the information in the Fintrac database can be accessed by Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (the RCMP – Canada’s FBI) or shared with overseas police and intelligence services. In the latter case, as we already know, mounting errors can result in innocent people being subject to ever more harsh treatment including being excluded from countries, placed on no-fly lists or even the UN1267 ‘known terrorists and affiliates’ list, as well as, in the worst cases, opening them up to extraordinary rendition, imprisonment and torture.

Jennifer Stoddart, the current Privacy Commissioner, has a well-deserved reputation getting positive changes made, so let’s hope she can persuade Fintrac to get this sorted out pretty soon.

RIPA to be limited

The UK Home Office is finally publishing plans to reform the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) which defined in law the surveillance powers open to hundreds of government bodies. You can see what I have previously said about the consultation here. The consultation on RIPA actually had 7 major questions. The Home Office has now responded to all the opinions offered during the consultation. In more detail, this is what was said:

1. Taking into account the reasons for requiring the use of covert investigatory techniques under RIPA set out for each public authority, should any of them nevertheless be removed from the RIPA framework?

Response: basically, none should be removed. Although the Home Office noted that many respondents had objections, they didn’t feel they added up. Indeed this section also seems to include extensions of the powers (or clarifications that act effectively as extensions) for example the ability of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission (the replacement for the Child Support Agency), to have access to telecommunications data to investigate fathers required to pay child support. These extensions may be warranted or not, but they show the tendency for what Gary Marx long ago called ‘surveillance creep’ to occur – the saving of telecommunications data has increased since RIPA was proposed and now RIPA will be used to allow new agencies access to this data.

They also note that they will not be returning any of these investigatory functions to the police. This is interesting because later they use the reason of non-interference in law-enforcement for denying elected councillors detailed oversight. So this confirms a trend to less and less accountable law enforcement.

2. If any public authorities should be removed from the RIPA framework, what, if any, alternative tools should they be given to enable them to do their jobs?

Response: given the previous response, it is not surprising that no real change is proposed here. The Home Office in fact insists that more emphasis should be placed on overt surveillance by local authorities (like CCTV) in order to reduce the need to resort to RIPA’s covert surveillance!

3. What more should we do to reduce bureaucracy for the police so they can use RIPA more easily to protect the public against criminals?

This wasn’t a question that I ever noticed critics of RIPA asking. Some agencies seem to have objected to the amount of paperwork around RIPA and The Home Office “agrees that it is in no-one’s interests for documentation to be unnecessarily time-consuming” and they, for once, insist on a proper auditable trail that can help protect privacy. They say in any case, applications are already down massively.

There is an interesting note that suggests the increasing use of RIPA for counter-terrorism activities which is left rather open – “the Government is facilitating the work of police collaborative units, such as the regional counter-terrorist units… This means officers seeking to use techniques under RIPA will be able to apply to authorising officers in different forces, where the Chief Officers have made a collaboration agreement that permits this”, in other words that RIPA might be used for massive, blanket undercover surveillance operations. Now that certain wasn’t what the government has recently claimed it was intended for – although of course, as anyone with any kind of memory will recall, it was exactly the justification used for passing it.

4. Should the rank at which local authorities authorise the use of covert investigatory techniques be raised to senior executive?

Response: The media reports thus far have focused on the plan to limit the authorisation of such practices to council chief executives and directors – a recommendation made by the House of Lords Constitution Committee – what the Home Office actually recommends is to restrict the decision to a rather wider set: ‘Director, Head of Service, Service Manager or equivalent’. So, no junior officers any more, which is good, but not necessarily senior managers only. They also recommend having a compliance officer designated, which is good if they genuinely work on active and ethical compliance rather than thinking of excuses in retrospect.

5. Should elected councillors be given a role in overseeing the way local authorities use covert investigatory techniques?

Response: yes they should, but it should be ‘strategic’ and limited to once a year setting of policy and strategy with quarterly oversight meetings. They argue, as I mentioned earlier, that non-interference in law-enforcement is a good reason for keeping elected officials away from the details… Councillors in the UK have been increasingly hamstrung in the way that they can oversee their supposed bureaucracy, even to the point where they have been fined and suspended for criticising their own officers. Some real control would be welcome (after all, that is what the purpose of local democracy should be).

6. Are the Government’s other proposed changes in the Consolidating Orders appropriate?

Response: the Home Office basically rejected all the respondents’ comments on the proposals.

7. Do the revised Codes of Practice provide sufficient clarity on when it is necessary and proportionate to use techniques regulated in RIPA?

Response: the codes of practice will be made clearer. No more guidance will be given. The Guardian says that the proposals will ‘ban’ the use of RIPA for ‘minor matters’ but I can’t really see that they do this, and the points of such codes is usually to avoid recourse to the law by encouraging a voluntary self-regulation; it is how CCTV is largely – and incredibly ineffectively – regulated in the UK too.

UK police still adding innocent people’s DNA to database

Research in the UK has shown that police forces in Britain are continuing to add the DNA – and incidentally the fingerprints, although this is never mentioned – of innocent people to the DNA database despite the European Court of Human Rights ruling that it was illegal (and the government’s promise to accept the ruling). According to The Guardian newspaper today, 90,000 innocent people have been added to the National DNA database (NDNAD) since a the court ruling and the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) – incidentally, a private organisation – is still telling chief constables to continue with this collection. On the other hand the process of removing individual profiles has been painfully slow: only 611 DNA profiles of innocent people have been removed, and all as a result of individual challenges in court. It seems that the police are determined to drag their feet as long as possible and, in fact, break the law quite openly. Hardly a good example…

Bizarre happenings in Rio de Janeiro

My collaborator, Paola Barreto Leblanc writes to me “Something really bizarre happened this week. In a public street in Rio’s center CCTVs from some buildings and a Bank – private circuits – caught a criminal action led by police officers [Policia Militar – PM, or Military Police, in fact]. Instead of helping a victim of an attack they rob the robbers!” The news story is available on youtube:

The thing that adds an extra layer of particularly bleak humour to this nasty event is that the name of the PM officer involved is capitão Bizarro (Captain Bizarre)… however, the really sad fact about the whole incident is that the victim was prominent social justice activist and founder of the internationally-renowned favela music group AfroReggae, Evandro João da Silva. He did a lot more good for the city and for the improvement of the lives of the urban poor than any gang-members or police officers ever did and he will be sorely missed. The PM chief, Mário Sérgio Duarte, who we interviewed back in April, is once again in the papers and on TV, apologizing. I noted at the time that Colonel Duarte seemed ‘profoundly indifferent’ to CCTV – I wonder if he will change his mind now and in what direction…

As Paola also writes to me, the nexus of CCTV in Rio is an intensely confusing one, mixing drug-gangs, corrupt police, the media, who like anywhere else seem to be living off the images from CCTV cameras without much in the way of respect for the victims. We are now starting to work together on a paper on these developments.

Would Canadians be “safer with a camera on every corner”?

I haven’t got very involved with Canadian debates on surveillance yet (but don’t worry, I will!). However a comment piece in Thursday’s Globe and Mail, which demanded that Canadian cities install ubiquitous video surveillance, prompted me to pen an immediate letter, which was signed by both Professor David Lyon and myself. It was published today, slightly edited – the full version is below. (They also decided to edit out our respective titles, which makes me look senior to Professor Lyon. Oops.)

“Marcus Gee writes that “We’d be safer with a camera on every corner” (Comment, May 22nd, p.15). If only this were true. However it simply is not the case.

Mr Gee quotes the UK as an example of where video surveillance is effective, but this is not supported by the crime figures in the UK or by academic research. The most comprehensive evaluation of all studies done of the effects of CCTV on crime (by the Campbell Collaboration, 2009) concluded that it had little or not effect on the occurrence of violent crimes like the disgraceful murder of Christopher Skinner, which prompted Mr Gee to write. Even the limited British police assessment of CCTV conducted by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) in 2008, admitted this was the case.

It is easy to demand that ‘something must be done’ as a response to any particular incident of violent crime, and CCTV is the currently fashionable ‘something.’ But let us get beyond the superficial and look at the evidence. Then we could have a proper debate about CCTV.”

Surveillance cameras in the favelas (4): more from the other side

The mainstream Bazilian media outlet, O Globo, is reporting that Fabiano Atanázio da Silva (AKA ‘FB’ or ‘Urubu’), allegedly a leader of the Amigos dos Amigos (‘Friends of Friends’) on Morro de Macaros, who recently tried to take control of the neighbouring favela, Morro São João, resulting in many deaths and even bringing down a police helicopter, had also installed a video surveillance system in his favela, which monitored the entrances of the favela and watched the movements of police and residents. So, it seems that it is clearly the traficante gangs who were first to install CCTV in the favelas of Rio for the purposes of helping to maintain a violent authority over the local area. The form of surveillance is what Bruno Latour perceptively called ‘oligoptic’ – a spatially limited vision but one which is very powerful within its limits. And of course, given the massive extent of private security and both legal and illegal surveillance equipment available in Brazil, it’s hardly surprising that gangs with disposable cash would invest in security like this. However, what is particularly interesting is that by doing the same thing and installing a video surveillance system in Santa Marta against the wishes of the local community, the military police are seen as effectively operating like a gang. This isn’t such a startling statement and was one which was quite frequently put to us by community representatives who we interviewed in the favelas of Rio earlier this year.

(thanks, again, to the invaluable Paola Barreto Leblanc for the information).