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  (Source: londonphotos.sweb.cz)
According to Oxford City Council, the footage from these cameras can be reviewed by police officers in the event of an investigation, but for no other purpose

Oxford City Council in England has announced that all taxis within the city will be required to place cameras in their vehicles by April 2015.

The cameras fitted within the cabs will record all passengers on a daily basis. Both video and audio will be recorded and stored on a CCTV hard drive for 28 days, and the cameras will be placed within black cabs and private-hire vehicles. Taxi drivers licensed for the first time must have the required equipment as well as a panic button installed by April 6, 2012, while cabs already registered will have until April 2015 to obtain the cameras.

According to Oxford City Council, the footage from these cameras can be reviewed by police officers in the event of an investigation, but for no other purpose.

Civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch views the placement of cameras within cabs as "a total disregard for civil liberties." Big Brother Watch is even planning to file a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

The ICO reportedly agrees with Big Brother Watch, noting that the continuous recording of passengers is an invasion of privacy.

"Licensing authorities must take account of people's right to privacy when deciding whether to impose CCTV as a licence condition for taxi drivers," said an ICO spokeswoman.

Oxford City Council said that the possibility of private conversations being intruded must be "balanced" against the public safety of drivers and passengers.

"Given that one rail route to Witney [David Cameron's constituency] is through Oxford, we'll be letting the prime minister know that his staff might want to avoid using Oxford cabs," said Nick Pickles, Big Brother Watch director.

This isn't the UK's first issue with tracking/surveillance. In October, it was discovered that Britain's Metropolitan Police were launching a surveillance system called "Listed X," which emits a signal over an area of up to 10 sq km, and the signal returns IMSI and IMEI identity codes of all mobile handsets in that area by acting like a legitimate mobile phone network.

Source: BBC News


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Old News
By Flunk on 11/15/2011 11:12:03 AM , Rating: 2
New York has required cameras or safety partitions since 2000. Many other cities have similar requirements.




RE: Old News
By Church of Dirac on 11/15/2011 11:25:28 AM , Rating: 1
Bulletproof partitions are one thing, cameras are totally different. Cameras on the bus are fine since it's pubic space, but I think it's fair to have a higher expectation of privacy in a taxi. By the way, I've never been to NYC, just curious if you are not allowed to ride in the front if you have a big group.

Anyways, this isn't too shocking to see this happening in the UK. I'm sure they'll have cameras and microphones in every private car, public bathrooms, and people's homes in a few years. Give it a few more years and we'll have it in the states too to fight "terrorism" and the "war on drugs". Bleh.


RE: Old News
By AssBall on 11/15/2011 12:33:08 PM , Rating: 1
Can folks just make a private company to compete with the taxis, or would they require cameras too?


RE: Old News
By Calin on 11/16/2011 3:51:44 AM , Rating: 2
Everyone can be a cab, but it must respect the rules imposed by the mayor office. So, the mayor have monopoly power over cabs (taxis) ("do it my way, or the highway").


RE: Old News
By drycrust3 on 11/15/2011 1:55:23 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
I think it's fair to have a higher expectation of privacy in a taxi.

As an idea, why don't you go down to the local railway station or shopping mall late at night and sit on a chair where everyone can see you with a box of money on the ground right where it can be seen. Having any second thoughts? If you aren't prepared to do that, and that is essentially the situation a taxi driver is in, except they are inside a box that is hard to get out of if they want to run away, then what do you propose to do that would help the situation?
Two years ago we had a guy murdered here in New Zealand over a fare, the passenger could have just run off, but no, he decides to kill the driver instead. He relied on the then "higher expectation of privacy" that you so much love to commit the crime, and would have got away but for the help of the public and the police in China (where he had run off to). Now he is doing 15 years in a Chinese jail. After that the government required cameras be installed in taxi cabs, and recently a taxi lobby group came out and said the behaviour of passengers has improved significantly since the installation of cameras.
This notion of a taxi cab as a private place is just nonsense, anyone can want a ride, and for any reason. Believe it or not, some of those people are criminals who believe in "free enterprise". Would you let "just anyone" into your house and then sit with your back to them? Do you object when you see cameras in service stations or liquor outlets? No? Why not? Because crime doesn't just increase the financial costs to society, it also increases the human cost, as in the case above. People are killed or maimed over items or services of menial value. In this case there is a wife and 4 kids who now have no father. Who's paying for them? The tax payers. Do you object to that? And don't forget we have a young man who, on the spur of the moment, broke all the rules he had been taught and lived by, and is now paying for it and will pay for it for the rest of his life. No one can say with any certainty how cameras would have affected this situation, but the idea of being watched probably would have changed it.


RE: Old News
By Reclaimer77 on 11/15/2011 2:00:55 PM , Rating: 4
It's never enough is it? As long as ONE person commits a crime, that's justification for EVERYONE being monitored under the assumption that EVERYONE is a criminal?

Guns were banned there, knives in the process of being banned, cameras installed everywhere, etc etc. Oh still have crime? Add more cameras and ban more things, that will work!


RE: Old News
By Aloonatic on 11/15/2011 2:09:50 PM , Rating: 2
Where is "there"?

Can't possibly be Britain as guns aren't banned here, you can get one if you want. Some knives might not be allowed on the street, but you can have them for your work or in the home.

Here's a challenge for you though. Imagine living in a country where you don't feel the need to have a gun. Can you imagine it? Can you? Didn't think so :o)

Anyway, I'm off to start selling CCTV cameras in America. I can only assume that there are none in operation there, going by the sanctimonious comments I see here every time a British CCTV camera article is posted.


RE: Old News
By Reclaimer77 on 11/15/2011 2:40:02 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
Here's a challenge for you though. Imagine living in a country where you don't feel the need to have a gun. Can you imagine it? Can you? Didn't think so :o)


The violent crime rates far worst in Britain. Yes your chances of being shot in America are much higher, but you just traded being shot for being stabbed or raped or car jacked or whatever. The violent crime rate in Britain is HIGHER than America's by a factor of 3! You have an 8% chance in Britain of being the victim as apposed to 2% in the United States. You don't "need" a gun in America, that's an absurd nationalist attack on your part.

Britain is THE most violent country in Europe. So before you even start in on my country, chew on that statistic and ask yourself what your CCTV has really gotten you?


RE: Old News
By drycrust3 on 11/16/2011 4:46:10 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
You don't "need" a gun in America,

Good, then you won't have any problem going down to your local shopping mall or railway station late at night and sitting there with an open box of money for several hours will you? That is basically what a taxi driver does. Make sure you chose a CCTV blind spot, we don't want to take away any mugger's "rights" do we? Don't feel inhibited, go for it! Tonight's a good night, but Friday and Saturday nights are really good nights! Of course, if you "haven't got the time" then maybe you should respect the right of taxi drivers to earn money with less fear of assault or murder, and their right to have the police bring assailants to justice.


RE: Old News
By martin5000 on 11/16/2011 4:51:34 AM , Rating: 2
Utter utter rubbish, in the UK a violent crime can include shouting at someone, or spitting!

Bottom line is that you're about 4 TIMES more likely to be murdered in the US than the UK.

Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_rate


RE: Old News
By AssBall on 11/16/2011 5:57:01 AM , Rating: 3
A dude in britain stabs a dude in the liver and he lives off your roflcopter health system for the rest of his life in aggravated pain peeing through his belly button. I'd take a simple homicide before that.

Then the perp can go to your hotshot prisons for a year or two and get free legal service, medicare, parole, and get out and stab someone else. Over here we'd just shoot the doosh trying to mug someone and it would be legal. Your justice system over there (I'm not saying ours does not suck) is twisted and morally warped.

The wiki article you quoted is self admittedly lacking in hard scientific numbers and has highly questionable data from sources that are biased. Britain is the utopia of peaceful living though, I'll just trust you.


RE: Old News
By martin5000 on 11/16/2011 8:31:44 AM , Rating: 2
I thought someone might come back with some idiotic anecdote, but you went even further and just made one up! How bizarre.

Murder rates are actually reasonably easy to compare. The UK one includes manslaughter, which in turn includes corporate manslaughter (i.e. accidents at work), so if anything its conservative.

Also regarding the "roflcopter health system", clearly its far from perfect, however if we look at actual statistics, we spend less than half what the US does on healthcare per person, yet live on average 1.1 years longer! So again, look at the facts.

sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Expectancy_by_Co...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_...


RE: Old News
By Reclaimer77 on 11/16/2011 9:54:04 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
yet live on average 1.1 years longer!


Wow a whole 1.1 years longer!! That's an amazing statistic and I'm sure a whopping 1 year difference couldn't possibly be because of any other factors or fall into any margin of error in gathering the statistics.

A whole year guys!!! Time to move to Britain, I'm packing my bags now.

quote:
Murder rates are actually reasonably easy to compare. The UK one includes manslaughter, which in turn includes corporate manslaughter (i.e. accidents at work), so if anything its conservative.


And Britain DOES have a massive and serious crime and violent crime rate. My point wasn't about what country had "worst crime" or more "murders". Didn't you get my point? That with ALL the laws, surveillance, CCTV cameras and whatever else, they STILL have a massive crime issue! Surveillance is NOT an effective deterrence.

So given all this evidence, there are those who are still telling me cameras in Taxi's are going to "protect" the drivers. Are you serious?


RE: Old News
By kattanna on 11/16/2011 10:49:18 AM , Rating: 2
i think we should take this to the next logical step.. every home should be required to have a security system with cameras inside the home to monitor it.. you know to protect the homeowner against break ins and such

and before i forget.. remember.. think of the children

;>)


RE: Old News
By martin5000 on 11/16/2011 11:11:40 AM , Rating: 2
Your statement that Britain has a massive crime problem is just not true, I showed that America has a vastly higher murder rate as evidence of this (murder being the most serious crime).

About the 1.1 years thing, I was again responding to someone's statement with a bit of evidence showing it was unlikely to be true.

I do agree that no individual measure like having cameras in taxis will magically eliminate crime, and many measures have negative consequences that may outweigh the benefit. In this case I suppose it boils down to how private a place you expect a taxi to be.

quote:
So given all this evidence...


I'm genuinely puzzled, as far as I see you haven't provided any?


RE: Old News
By AssBall on 11/16/2011 1:32:42 PM , Rating: 2
So get raped, stabbed, and curb stomped instead of dying. sounds cool. Imma pack my bags too.


RE: Old News
By Reclaimer77 on 11/16/2011 10:38:44 PM , Rating: 2
"American homicide rates are based on initial data, but British homicide rates are based on the final disposition." Suppose that three men kill a woman during an argument outside a bar. They are arrested for murder, but because of problems with identification (the main witness is dead), charges are eventually dropped. In American crime statistics, the event counts as a three-person homicide, but in British statistics it counts as nothing at all. "With such differences in reporting criteria, comparisons of U.S. homicide rates with British homicide rates is a sham," the report concludes."

http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/...


RE: Old News
By Reclaimer77 on 11/16/2011 10:55:38 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Your statement that Britain has a massive crime problem is just not true


http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-237...


RE: Old News
By ghost101 on 11/16/2011 3:20:40 PM , Rating: 2
Again someone who knows nothing about statistics. Firstly, birth and death certificates on the whole are very accurate. Secondly even if there is a small margin of error, when n -> infinity, anyone with some knowledge of numbers will tell you that you tend to the true mean. When n=millions then you get a very accurate statistic where even a 1% difference is very significant.

Britain does have a problem with serious crime, but it we aren't used to American levels of crime. We would compare out murder rates to the best European rates and aspire to that. So don't delude yourself into thinking that the US is safer in terms of violent crime.


RE: Old News
By Reclaimer77 on 11/16/11, Rating: 0
RE: Old News
By ghost101 on 11/16/2011 3:06:08 PM , Rating: 2
That is such crap. As someone has pointed out, murder rates are much higher in the US. You have any statistics on rape and physical assault to assert your claim?

In the UK, we classify things such as verbal assault as violent crime.

You probably read highly misleading articles like this from the Daily Mail (or a source which used the DM as a source). In the UK 90% of people consider the Daily Mail as a sensationalist joke.

Even they state that

"But criminologists say crime figures can be affected by many factors, including different criminal justice systems and differences in how crime is reported and measured.

In Britain, an affray is considered a violent crime, while in other countries it will only be logged if a person is physically injured. But Police Minister David Hanson said: 'These figures are misleading. Levels of police recorded crime statistics from different countries are simply not comparable since they are affected by many factors, for example the recording of violent crime in other countries may not include behaviour that we would categorise as violent crime. 'Violent crime in England and Wales has fallen by almost a half a peak in 1995 but we are not complacent and know there is still work to do. That is why last year we published 'Saving lives. Reducing harm. Protecting the public. An Action Plan for Tackling Violence 2008-11.'"

So basically we include things such as scuffles between kids.

The same people who cite these incomparable statistics wouldn't believe you if the same statistics said violent crime has been cut in half.

I love how UK bashing Americans still love to use debunked statistics from rags such as the DM. Most famously the CCTV figure they used was created by extrapolating from a cherry picked high street which represents a very large number of businesses protecting their private property with private cameras.


RE: Old News
By icrf on 11/15/2011 5:35:42 PM , Rating: 2
I'm fuzzy on this being a requirement. Couldn't independent cab companies offer them voluntarily and cabbies and riders alike can opt-in to those companies that offer what they think is better protection?


RE: Old News
By AssBall on 11/16/2011 1:09:56 AM , Rating: 1
That's pretty much what I asked too and I got rated down. Anyone actually have an answer?


RE: Old News
By villapark75 on 11/16/2011 10:49:00 AM , Rating: 2
In the UK taxis, both black cabs and private hire firms, need a license from the local authority to operate.
It sounds like the local authority(Oxford Council) are implementing this, so can't see a way around it.
Not sure how limos are licensed? But i bet a camera in 1 of those would record all sorts ;)


RE: Old News
By Dr of crap on 11/16/2011 10:03:11 AM , Rating: 2
Dude I have to agree with reclaimer77 - it's never enough!
Maybe if we got down to the reason there is some much crime now, we would NOT NEED cameras in the cabs!

The young a$$s that get into gangs - bad parenting, plain and simple, the beatings and such that you see everyday - the fault of the bleeding hearts that think we should be less strict with the "perps". Hell smack them around a bit and let cops BE cops. And yes I know there are SOME cops that would take advantage of this, but please if we took off the restaints that we places on cops, maybe they could reduce this crazy crime we have now.

But don't be to hard on the criminals, that's to hurtful. Would you think the same if these criminals killed a member of your family?


How influential
By Reclaimer77 on 11/15/2011 12:10:32 PM , Rating: 2
How influential is this group in a country where CCTV even exists?

quote:
Civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch views the placement of cameras within cabs as "a total disregard for civil liberties." Big Brother Watch is even planning to file a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).


You guys have failed utterly.




RE: How influential
By cjohnson2136 on 11/15/2011 12:30:01 PM , Rating: 2
Cause being in a cab is such a private place while in front of a complete stranger lol. I mean honestly if you don't want to be video taped don't ride in the cabs.


RE: How influential
By Reclaimer77 on 11/15/2011 12:36:39 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
I mean honestly if you don't want to be video taped don't ride in the cabs.


Wow... thanks for proving my point I guess. Just don't be in public at all, anywhere doing anything, if you don't want to be filmed. Brilliant attitude.


RE: How influential
By AssBall on 11/15/2011 12:36:48 PM , Rating: 2
The next step will be to put it in your car and then send you a nice little ticket when you bust out your phone/wopper/beer/roadhead.


Oh I bet...
By chmilz on 11/15/2011 11:06:34 AM , Rating: 2
When a couple drunk 20-something girls decide to make out a bit I can guarantee the video will be viewed by someone other than the police, and also likely make its way onto Youtube.

I'm not for or against this really, just making a statement about what guys do when they see drunk ladies make out.




RE: Oh I bet...
By cjohnson2136 on 11/15/2011 12:35:20 PM , Rating: 2
I doubt the cab drivers would have access to the video footage though. Typically you would have a few guys that have access to all the footage and they wouldn't know when or where the "making out" scene happened.


wow
By shadowamazon on 11/15/2011 2:50:31 PM , Rating: 2
Hey why don't we require camera to be installed at everyone's home. That way we can monitor everyone then there is no chance any criminal can fall through the crack during an investigation.
Good job UK.




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