Oops - see, it's happening already...

Earlier I wrote about an announcement that the Metropolitan police were to get a real time feed from London's congestion charge cameras, but only if they promise faithfully only to use it in the tracking of "car borne terrorists" (does that include those who support terrorism by selling the odd dodgy DVD do you think?. But it appears there's to be legislation to enable all police forces everywhere to use such a feed from their local cameras for any sort of crime fighting:

'Big Brother' plan for police to use new road cameras | Special Reports | Guardian Unlimited Politics:

· Home Office leak reveals clash between ministers
· Millions of motorists could be tracked

Alan Travi, home affairs editor
Wednesday July 18, 2007
The Guardian

"Big Brother" plans to automatically hand the police details of the daily journeys of millions of motorists tracked by road pricing cameras across the country were inadvertently disclosed by the Home Office last night.

Leaked Whitehall background papers reveal that Home Office and transport ministers have clashed over plans for legislation this autumn enabling the police to get automatic "real-time" access to the bulk data from the traffic cameras now going into operation. The Home Office says the police need the data from the cameras, which can read and store every passing numberplate, "for all crime fighting purposes".

Nick Clegg's on the case though:

The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, Nick Clegg, said the "unintended act of open government" had revealed the disingenuous attitude of ministers towards public fears about a creeping surveillance state: "No wonder Douglas Alexander was keen to tone down these proposals, since he must know that public resistance to a road charging scheme will go through the roof if it is based on technology which poses a threat to personal privacy. Bit by bit, vast computer databases are being made inter-operable and yet the government seems to running scared of a full and public debate."

Technorati Tags: surveillance state