Spy for Prizes, UK citizens told
p2pnet view Freedom | P2P:- “A company calling itself Internet Eyes is going to launch a worldwide internet surveillance tool for citizens to spy on each other over live CCTV in exchange for the chance to win cash prizes,” says a Fa$ebook Group.
“All cctv camera feed locations are anonymous and randomly generated… we never disclose the location to the viewers, who alert anonymously so there is no fear of retribution,” says the Spy for Prizes Fa$ebook page.
No worries, then.
Rat someone out and you won’t get your legs broken.
It’s hard to imagine anyone seriously proposing a business with one person spying on another as its foundation.
But on second thoughts, it isn’t really surprising. The UK already has more closed circuit television cameras surreptitiously watching its citizens than any other country, and it’s now contemplating the introduction of remotely controlled spy aircraft.
Spying on each other is, in other words, a way of life in the British Isles.
“The company had initially offered to pay out up to £1,000 if registered viewers spotted shoplifting or other crimes in progress,” says the BBC.
But the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has stopped Internet Eyes “operating fully while it investigates the plans,” says the story, going on, “The ICO is making sure the site meets data protection laws, considering issues including training of staff and identification of people in footage.”
According to Internet Eyes sales and marketing manager Max Patey, the company is already in touch with the ICO.
“We have always been aware that we have to abide by the laws in regards to data protection,” he says in the story.
“The ICO has been very kind to us and we will adhere by their suggestions.”
Some 13,390 people have already registered but there’s “nothing for them to view at the moment,” says the BBC, adding:
“Last month, the site’s managing director, Tony Morgan, told BBC’s Inside Out London programme that it was not ‘a game’ and that viewers would not know exactly which camera they were watching or where it was located.
“We are just rewarding people for their vigilance”, he said.
It’s interesting that the company apparently has such unrestricted access to government surveillance cameras in the first place.
Keep watching …
..… and identi.ca
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
spy aircraft – UK cops eye spies in the sky, January 26, 2010
BBC – CCTV monitoring website launch delayed by review, January 28, 2010
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January 28th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
“It’s interesting that the company apparently has such unrestricted access to government surveillance cameras in the first place.”
This is the concern I’ve been ranting about in ALL these matters of surveillance and shared information.
It’s bad enough we haven’t really been given good reasons to trust the police to use these technologies and the data it yields reasonably and responsibly, and with proper intention. But, it doesn’t stop at law enforcement, or even “security firms”.
EVERYONE wants to spy on all things. So now, we have all these companies doing it, when they have absolutely no business being in the business of spying, and no business being in possession of the data they’re keeping. This is already resulting in not only an infinite number of legal “witch hunts” and unnecessary collateral damage to the innocent, but a massive, ongoing abuse of the public’s right to privacy in general.
Marketers are spying on the public in every conceivable way, for their own gain, and we have “legal firms” spying on filesharers, both to further anti-consumer propaganda, and gather clearly faulty evidence to further the agenda of a greedy IP-centric corporate world.
It needs to stop.
People need to begin asking themselves why the whole thing got started in the first place, and what’s actually changed.
You have all the very makings of a “police state” being installed into everything you do now. You’re already not a “free citizen” anymore, by any standards people used to measure this by. In addition to knowing someone probably has video footage of you in the act of just going to the corner store (where applicable), everything from “spot checks” to “naked scanning” is being thrust upon you, supposedly in the name of “protecting your freedom” and “stopping the terrorists”?!? You’re being told that the Internet needs to have some form of corporate control, supposedly to “protect” you from everything from “child porn” and “piracy” to (again) “terrorism”!!?
Yet, no matter how many ways you allow them to take away your rights and liberties, you’re still being told the same “threats” not only persist, but have ESCALATED, and therefore, MORE of your rights and liberties will need to be taken away. According to the “powers that be”, you’re not any “safer” than you were before, and you’re never going to be.
How much of this bullshit are you willing to accept??
People really need to wake up to what’s actually going on.
It’s called the “problem-reaction-solution”, and it’s a psychological formula that’s been in practice by your governments for years. They create a “problem” (Pearl Harbour, 7/7, 9/11), achieve the desired “reaction” (”fear+uncertainty+doubt”, “evil forces want us dead!”, “patriotic” citizens volunteer for duty), and offer up the “solution” (”war on terror”, Patriot Act, police state).
The result is always more control of the People, their resources, their activities, their independence, and their dissent (since their ability to grow, succeed, and organize is also controlled).