Alan Lodge's Blog

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

First test blogging, from my Nokia 9300 mobile.
On the way home, after a meeting in Nottingham. I thought I’d pause, and check if this method of posting to my shiny new blog works ok. This could well be useful in comms from the street / demos / events etc. Anyway,  just testing really ………. tash

Monday November 5 is Stand Up for Journalism day, the NUJ day of action across the UK and Ireland.

Further, Journalists across Europe are expected to take part.

Here in Nottingham, the main theme of the event in Market square this afternoon, was the closure of the Central ITV News. In future, news will be broadcast from Birmingham.

The demo was attended by National Union of Journaists, BECTU and Unite. Support for the campaign was additionally offered by jon Collins, leader Nottingham City Council, and John Heppell MP Nttm North.

The main objective, as with any union campaign, is to draw attention to job cuts, wage issues, devaluing staff conditions etc ….. For me though, I think additionally, there is a concern for journalistic standards and ethics. I think these are worth standing up for.

The event has been billed as the biggest demonstration by UK journalists since Wapping and is being held to protest “round after round of cuts in newsrooms”.

According to the NUJ, the European Federation of Journalists decided to support the action and events are now planned in 20 countries across the continent.

The union said that there will be a two-minute work stoppage by media workers in Serbia, a demonstration outside the National Assembly in Paris, and a petition to the government in Romania.

Journalists from all sectors of the media – broadcasting, newspapers, magazines, PR, and online – will be protesting against savage cuts which are hampering their ability to keep the public informed.

Most media companies make big money – but they engage in round after round of cuts to increase their profit margins.

Journalists are reduced to a cross between call-centre workers and data processors. Stuck at their desks re-jigging press releases. Who knows what corruption, lies, and law-breaking is going on in the corridors of power – no-one has the time to look.
Photographers, reporters, sub-editors, producers, and news readers are saying enough is enough.

Please support the National Union of Journalists’ campaign by organising an event in your workplace or town.

More pictures on Indymedia at: Stand up for Journalism : Market Sq, Nottingham Event
http://indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/nottinghamshire/2007/11/385178.html

*****

Stand Up For Journalism
http://www.standupforjournalism.org.uk

National Union of Journalists
http://www.nuj.org.uk/inner.php?docid=1774

Indymedia – NHS whistleblower Stands Up for Journalism
http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/10/384442.html

European day of action ‘Stand Up For Journalism’ Netherlands branch of the NUJ
http://indymedia.nl/nl/2007/11/48093.shtml

Bristol Indymedia – Stand Up For Journalism – 5 November
http://bristol.indymedia.org/newswire.php?story_id=27009

Bristol Indymedia – Press Realease
http://bristol.indymedia.org/newswire.php?story_id=27010

Pictures from various events around the country, collected on the NUJ – Stand Up For Journalism Flickr Pages at:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/standupforjournalism/pool

Spring in Action [Climate Week] in Nottingham [picture set]

A week of workshops, events, music and action on climate change happened at different venues across Nottingham.

Climate change is real and its happening now. Governments and corporations dream of continued economic growth – economic growth can’t solve this crisis, but we can. A massive and concerted effort is needed on the scale of ‘Dig for Victory’ or the ‘Home Front’: A war on climate change.

We can’t continue our current way of life – the oil on which it all depends is running out too fast. A shift to a locally based economy will have to happen, with food and energy being produced by the people that use it. The only question is when? We could start now, or we could wait for a future of war, famine, hurricanes, droughts and floods. We need to gain the courage and change fast enough to cultivate a new world, before it’s too late.

‘Spring into Action’ was part of an emerging grassroots movement against climate change. Born out of the Camp for Climate Action (www.climatecamp.org.uk), ‘Spring into Action’ unites people across the east of England into making changes in our own lives, creating small scale solutions in our communities and resisting those who still seek their own short term gain over a safe future for us all.

So get involved, and help organise the change that you want to experience in our world.

info@eastsideclimateaction.org.uk
http://www.eastsideclimateaction.org.uk

Climate Issues, Collected picture set

Also, have collected this large set of pictures, on many related climate issues.

Climate Issues, Collected picture set

I have found a number of ‘explaination’, like this one, but people keep thinking of other examples to add on the end. Have to say this one made me chuckle.

SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the
milk away…

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.

SURREALISM
You have two giraffes.
The government requires you to take harmonica lessons

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead.

ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the release. The public then buys your bull.

THE ANDERSEN MODEL
You have two cows.
You shred them.

A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike, organise a riot, and block the roads, because you want
three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and
produce twenty times the milk.
You then create a clever cow cartoon image called ‘Cowkimon’ and market
it worldwide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and
milk themselves.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don’t know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
You count them again and learn you have 2 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Both are mad.

AN IRAQI CORPORATION
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
No-one believes you, so they bomb the **** out of you and invade your country. You still have no cows, but at least now you are part of a Democracy….

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very attractive.

A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.

Hello all

I have just arrived from blogger, so, hello each.  I will shortly try to migrate from blogger.

So, testing, testing etc ……..

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!

I have recently updated this list of my Indymedia ‘Collected’ Posts.I lot of photographer folks, present themselves on a website, by subject.

I usually do, but as an experiment I have collected these together, and it thus shows some of my work, in date order. A kind of diary of my activities I guess.

Please take a peek at:

http://tinyurl.com/ynttvo

Having attended the V3 Wind Turbine Workshops a couple of weekends ago [links below], I thought I’d check out some other examples of wind turbines uses, in and around the Nottingham area.These links to pictures show the main examples I’ve found.

* Domestic setups on houses
* intermediate-sized ones, Rushcliffe Country Park
* ‘Test-bed’ examples: University of Nottingham – School of the Built Environment
* Eco-house at University of Nottingham
* Small scale ‘free-light’ types on barges on the canal.

Now, together with solar panels, it’s a start innit! but no planets are going get saved just yet, from this level of activity.

My first observation is that in a city the size of Nottingham, I only found 2 on houses! That’s right TWO! I’ve looked into this quite a lot this last couple of weeks, with much walking, interweb surfing and phone calls, and that’s all I could find. They both feed the grid, and none, including the large pair at Rushcliffe, store the electic generated.

The University has a few examples, but only running as test-beds at School of the Built Environment. None that I could find, doing productive work on the campus.

So, I guess the issues are that same as they have been for years. They are not thought to be economically viable with high start-up costs, with an insufficient percentage return.

There are then considerable planning hoops to jump through, and often with local area objections.

Frequently these are from the neighbours who are concerned about the potential noise. I spoke to the neighbours at both the houses I visited, and they agreed that noise wasn’t a problem for them.

Another frequently heard objection is that they interfere with and are a risk to migrating birds. Speaking to worker at the Rushciffe Country Park, where they have Two 5 kW turbines that been in operation for nearly 3 years, he pointed out that: “I think we may have stunned a pigeon last year!”

Then of course, they interfere with air transport and operations. This doesn’t seem to hold water now does it with – East Midlands Airport Airport Plans For Wind Turbines

I am still looking about for other examples of ‘good-practice’ around Nottingham, so any leads most gratefully received.

Spring into Action events, held earlier here in Nottingham.
Climate change is real and its happening now. Governments and corporations dream of continued economic growth – economic growth can’t solve this crisis, but we can. A massive and concerted effort is needed on the scale of ‘Dig for Victory’ or the ‘Home Front’: A war on climate change.

We can’t continue our current way of life – the oil on which it all depends is running out too fast. A shift to a locally based economy will have to happen, with food and energy being produced by the people that use it. The only question is when? We could start now, or we could wait for a future of war, famine, hurricanes, droughts and floods. We need to gain the courage and change fast enough to cultivate a new world, before it’s too late.

‘Spring into Action’ is part of an emerging grassroots movement against climate change. Born out of the Camp for Climate Action (www.climatecamp.org.uk), ‘Spring into Action’unites people across the east of England into making changes in our own lives, creating small scale solutions in our communities and resisting those who still seek their own short term gain over a safe future for us all.

So get involved, come and help organise the change that you want to experience in our world.

http://www.eastsideclimateaction.org.uk

See also:

Climate Camp http://www.climatecamp.org.uk

Yet more info from:

Centre for Alternative Technology

British Wind Energy Association

Wind Turbine Workshop [1] [2]

Wind Turbines: Practical uses in Nottingham Area [1] [2] [3]

DIY V3 Wind Turbine Workshop [Feature]

Spring into Action :: Build your own wind turbine workshop

Sounds on the Downs – Wind Turbine Set-up

Hill Holt Wood Lincolnshire [1] [2]

Just made these shows, to a couple of catchy tunes, just for the giggle really.Hope you like

V3 Wind Turbines + others

[youtube=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3TuPpqMJc_E]

Green’s Windmill, Sneinton

[youtube=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=QwMx4PfJxww]

A Nottingham photographer who helped draft the guidelines used by the police for dealing the press has been found guilty of obstructing a police officer while photographing an armed incident.16 August 2007 Alan Lodge, 54, was sentenced at Nottingham Magistrates Court to a nine month conditional discharge and was ordered to pay £400 in court costs. It is not yet clear whether he will appeal the verdict.

His case, which was backed by the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), spanned 12 court appearances over an 18 month period.

At an earlier pre-trial hearing, Paul Dhami, representing the defendant, told the court: “Alan Lodge was photographing a police armed response unit on Alfred Street, Nottingham, on Saturday 18th March. He was arrested firstly for assault, then de-arrested. He was then arrested and de-arrested for breach of the peace, before finally being arrested and later charged with obstruction.”

Lodge had stopped to photograph an incident in the Mansfield Road area of central Nottingham on March 18th 2006, which involved a number of armed police officers and a police helicopter.

Shortly after Lodge began photographing the incident from the street, he was asked to stop by a police officer. Lodge refused to do so, citing the police-press guidelines which had been agreed a month earlier.

Defence solicitor Paul Dhami told the court: “It would appear that the officer in question was either not aware of these guidelines or chose to ignore him.”

“The officers took exception to his presence, and one took it upon himself to physically impede Alan and then arrested him”.

More than a little frightened”

Last year Lodge told EPUK: “The constable..was shoving me in the chest and pushing me about and advancing on me.”

“The man with the gun turned me round – assaulted me, essentially…and then I have a sub-machine gun in my back, so I’m more than a little frightened at that point.”

Lodge was then informed that he was being arrested for assaulting a police officer, and his camera was taken off him. However, he was then immediately released because of the ongoing police operation, but his camera was not returned.

“I persisted that I would like my camera back, they ignored me, I persisted again, then they arrested me once more for breach of the peace. I was taken down to the police station are charged with obstruction of a police officer”

The prosecutor told the court “By standing so closely in front of the armed response officer, Mr Lodge was obstructing his line of view needed to carry out his duty”

“Astonished” by the outcome

NUJ Nottingham branch secretary Kevin Stanley told Press Gazette: “We believe that this case raises important questions about the relationship between journalists and the police.”

“We particularly call on Nottinghamshire Police to ensure that guidelines issued to police staff and journalists more than eighteen months ago; are properly followed by officers. The guidelines, endorsed by the Chief Constable, state that journalists should not be moved on or arrested simply for doing their job.”

“Despite the best efforts of the corporate communications department of Nottinghamshire Police, we feel that not enough rank-and-file officers fully understand the need for these guidelines or why they are so important. We therefore call upon the chief constable to reiterate the letter and the spirit of the guidelines to all officers.”

John Toner, the NUJ’s freelance organiser attended the whole trial and said he was “astonished” at the outcome. “In my opinion, our barrister Ben Mills was excellent and I remain convinced that the weight of evidence supported the defence. Alan was dignified and truthful throughout.”

“I would, though, urge photographers not to panic over this judgement. It was an unusual case, and the elements of one case cannot easily compare with the elements of another. The outcome should not deter photographers from going about their business as normal.”

*****

“I remain convinced that the weight of evidence supported the defence”.

John Toner, NUJ

EP-UK 16 August 2007

Lots to say about it all, but for starters …. check outhttp://www.climatecamp.org.uk

hotline info call 0207 3779088, running from 10am-6pm each day

‘Blasted Campers’ info line on 0207 043 3783.

Indymedia operations, are well underway

http://indymedia.org.uk/en/actions/2007/climatecamp

Site now occupied by 150 odd bods, moving in 2 days before they were supposed to!! Well I never …. check outhttp://www.climatecamp.org.uk

Please follow progres from the camp at:

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/actions/2007/climatecamp

Information on there, as it all unfolds

500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUDIoN-_Hxs]

I thought that this was splendid. Derbyshires finest in action. Making waves …. and no progress.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvdpYgX4f7Q]

On Saturday 30 June at 12 noon, The Nottingham Congolese Community assembed to demonstrated against continued deportations.

Starting from The Old Market Square, they marched through Nottingham, past the railway station and continued through the Meadows Queens Walk to the Meadows Park near the embankment.

They wanted to draw attention to continued deportations of their community to the Congo, in spite of the risks to them.

Is the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) really independent? Since “independence was granted to the DRC on 30 June 1960, the country has been under the control of criminals and dictators, while its progress has been hindered by foreign interference, illegal exploitation and exportation of the Congo’s natural resources, and levels of repression, human rights abuses and conflict that have killed millions and produced hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers, refugees and internally displaced persons.

Despite the so-called ‘ democratic’ elections last year, more than people were gunned down in February this year in the Bas- Congo region while protesting against local election results. Innocent men, women and children belonging to the politico-religious group Bundu dia Kongo were killed while they prayed in their church.

On 22 and 23 march, more than 700 people died in the capital when troops loyal to Joseph ‘ Kabila’ used heavy arms in an open street battle against those backing hi8s presidential contender Jean-Pierre Bemba. Hundreds more were seriously injured, thousands arrested and an unknown number were forcibly disappeared. In the east of the country, war between opposing groups of militias is still causing death, devastation, displacement and acute insecurity. Rape is endemic throughout the country and is used as a weapon of oppression punishment and torture.

Industrial loggers are being allowed to plunder the Congo’s remaining intact rainforest , upon which more than two thirds of the population depend for their livelihood. Eighty percent of the species found in the Congo cannot be found anywhere else on earth. People are being exploited for their land.

There is credible evidence of persecution of Congolese Asylum seekers who are forcibly returned to the DRC. A country Guidance tribunal due to start on July will aim to determine that it is unsafe to return people under present conditions.

Organised by: Nottingham Congolese Community.
Supported by: No Borders Nottingham, African Initiative Support, NCADC

Other postings for this year, on this and related issues.

Nottingham Mayday 1 Event: suported asylum seekers in their demand for the right to work.

Nottingham Mayday 2 Parade: suported asylum seekers in their demand for the right to work.

Nottingham No Borders ‘National Day of Action on Asylum Rights’

Nottingham Demo against deportations to Congo

Nottingham Situation in the Congo is worsening as deportations continue [Feature]

******

More indymedia posts:

Occupation at Labour Party Offices for East Midlands

Nottingham Protest against Deportations to Northern Iraq (Kurdistan)

Nottingham Police Station :: Forced Deportations Continue

Anti-Deportation Protest at Nottingham Magistrates Court

&&&&&&&&

http://www.nobordersnottingham.org.uk
http://www.nottsrefugeeforum.org.uk
http://www.ncadc.org.uk

More info on Nottingham Congolese community,
Contact: Patrick Essalo 07877489626
patrickessalo@yahoo.com

Current UK Threat Level

http://www.intelligence.gov.uk/threat_levels.aspx

The current threat level is assessed as Critical (as of 30th June 2007).

What are Threat Levels
Threat levels are designed to give a broad indication of the likelihood of a terrorist attack. They are based on the assessment of a range of factors including current intelligence, recent events and what is known about terrorist intentions and capabilities. This information may well be incomplete and decisions about the appropriate security response are made with this in mind.

Together with the detailed assessments behind them, this analysis informs security practitioners in key sectors and the police of the potential threat of terrorist attack. Threat assessments are also produced as necessary for individuals and events. There are five threat levels which inform decisions about the levels of security needed to protect our Critical National Infrastructure (CNI).

Critical – an attack is expected imminently

Women representatives from the Six Nations on the Grand River community in Ontario, Canada gave a talk at the Sumac Centre, Forest Fields, Nottingham on Wednesday the 27th of June at 7.30 pm.

Indymedia Report

They spoke about the experience of reclaiming and defending a piece of land from development. Their action has been incredibly successful, having prevented the development and protected the land from an armed police incursion.

They have been touring England, Ireland and Scotland, to give talks about taking back a piece of stolen Indigenous land from development and struggling for Indigenous Sovereignty.

Women representatives of Six Nations Territory, Canada give Sumac Talk

Six Nations of the Grand River is the name applied to two contiguous Indian reserves southeast of Brantford, Ontario, Canada – Six Nations reserve no. 40 and Glebe Farm reserve no. 40B. The original reserve was granted by Frederick Haldimand under the Haldimand Proclamation of October 1784 to Joseph Brant and his Iroquois followers in appreciation of their support for the Crown during the American Revolution. These lands were given in perpetuity as the words of the original proclamation state:

“I have at the earnest desire of many of these His Majesty’s faithful allies purchased a tract of land from the Indians situated between the Lakes Ontario, Erie and Huron, and I do hereby in His Majesty’s name authorize and permit the said Mohawk Nation and such others of the Six Nation Indians as wish to settle in that quarter to take possession of and settle upon the Banks of the River commonly called Ouse or Grand River, running into Lake Erie, allotting to them for that purpose six miles deep from each side of the river beginning at Lake Erie and extending in that proportion to the head of the said river which them and their posterity are to enjoy for ever.” Much of the land was lost during the 19th century to squatters and by theft and deceit supported by the crown and its agents.

The original tract of land stretched from the mouth of the Grand River on the shores of Lake Erie to the river’s head, and for 10 km (6 mi) from either bank, encompasing some 3,800 km² (950,000 acres).

They later welcomed a group of Delawares to the reserve. The current reserves encompass 184.7 km² (71 mi²), all but 0.4 km² in Six Nations reserve no. 40.

Six Nations of the Grand River is the most populous reserve in Canada, with a population in 2001 of 21,474. The reserve is home to members of the following nations:

Tuscarora
Seneca
Cayuga
Onondaga
Mohawk
Oneida

The current Caledonia land dispute came to the attention of the general public on February 28, 2006. On that date, protesters from the Six Nations of the Grand River began a demonstration to raise awareness about First Nation land claims in Ontario, Canada, and particularly about their claim to a parcel of land in Caledonia, Ontario, a community within the single-tier municipality of Haldimand County, roughly 20 kilometres southwest of Hamilton. Soon after this demonstration, the demonstrators occupied the disputed land.

The land at the centre of the dispute covers 40 hectares which was to be developed by Henco Industries Ltd. into a residential subdivision known as the Douglas Creek Estates. It is part of a 385,000-hectare plot of land known as the “Haldimand Tract”,[1] which was granted, in 1784, by the Crown to the Six Nations of the Grand River, for their use in settlement. Henco argues that the Six Nations surrendered their rights to the land in 1841, and Henco later purchased it from the Crown. The Six Nations, however, maintain that their title to the land was never relinquished.

***

Indymedia Report

Indigenous Woman from Ontario, Canada visit Nottingham to voice their struggle in defend of land

Native American Journalists Association

Six Nations of the Grand River Wikipedia

Six Nations Of The Grand River Territory

Turtle Island News
Canada’s only national native weekly newspaper, published every week at the Grand River Territory of the Six Nations in southern Ontario. It is a politically independent newspaper that is wholly owned and operated by Aboriginal People.

Six Nations at the Cross Roads: The Day The Trust Died
April 20, 2006 OPP Raid Kanonhstaton

Six Nations Solidarity

Six Nations Solidarity Links

Ontario Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs

Six Nations (Caledonia) Negotiations Costs to Date

Indian and Northern Affairs Canada

CameraWatch was launched in Edinburgh yesterday. Despite it’s name, it is not an activist group, it is an industry-funded advisory group. However, it did start with a few tips that may be useful to activists facing prosecution using CCTV images.

“Research shows that up to 90% of CCTV installations fail to comply with the Information Commissioner’s UK CCTV Code of Practice and many installations are operated illegally. That has profound implications for the reputation of the CCTV and camera surveillance industry and all concerned with it. It‚s clear there is a need for an organisation dedicated to promoting the legal and effective use of CCTV. I’m not surprised there’s confusion. It’s a complex area not just covering appropriate siting and signage issues, but also various pieces of legislation. In particular, the Data Protection Act covers images of people and requires they are held securely if the data is to be used as legal and admissible evidence. Storing images of people is also impacted by the EU Human Rights Act. As things stand today, clever legal counsel could drive a horse and cart through most CCTV evidence and that is not in anybody’s best interests.” (except the defendents !)

http://www.firmmagazine.com/members/news.php?id=702

“The Data Protection Act is breached in several common ways. The most frequent is the failure to keep camera tapes secure. Under the Act, human images should be treated as confidential information in the same way as names, addresses and phone numbers. The arrival of digital cameras poses yet more problems; for the images can be transferred across open internet connections rather than remaining on a closed loop. Viewing monitors are often wrongly sited in public areas, so other people can see who is being filmed, and a number of the 3,500 CCTV systems are not registered under the Data Protection Act, as is required. Additionally, cameras are frequently used for another purpose than the one for which they were registered and the necessary clear signage is regularly missing.”

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article1862457.ece

90% of CCTV is illegal

Illegal CCTV Update

Last month it was reported that 90% of CCTV systems are illegal.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/05/371983.html
Someone asked how to find out more about which CCTV systems are illegal so I asked the Information Commisioners Office, who just replied.

“Not all data controllers are required to notify under the Data Protection Act 1998 for the purpose of CCTV. We have produced guidance that helps data controllers to determine whether they are required to notify for the purpose of CCTV which is available on the ICO website under the heading ‘For organisations’, then click on CCTV. We are not required, and do not to keep a list of data controllers that are not registered under the Data Protection Act 1998. Notification is a self-assessment process whereby each organisation determines if notification is required. The total number of data controllers whose notification include the purpose of CCTV P113 – Crime Prevention and Prosecution of Offenders is 49,486. We are unable to break this number down on a more local level unless you have a specific postcode/s that we could narrow the search criteria down to. If you would like the search to be narrowed to specific postcodes, please advise accordingly. Alternatively, you carry out searches on the public register of data controllers available on our website.”

Requirement to Register:

“The UK has more public and private CCTV systems per person than anywhere else in the world. Because of this, it’s an area in which we’re taking a great deal of interest. If you have a very basic CCTV system, its use may not be covered by the Data Protection Act. For example, if you’re a small shopkeeper with a couple of cameras you can’t move remotely which record whatever the system picks up and only give the recorded images to the police as a result of an incident in your shop, then you’re not covered by the Act. However, if your system is more advanced and allows you to zoom in on an individual member of staff whose behaviour is causing you concern, or you use cameras to monitor the movements and activities of your workforce, you’ll need to inform us. You’ll also need to let us know if you give the recorded images to anyone other than the police or a similar law enforcement agency. The highly sophisticated CCTV systems used in large shops, railway stations, town centres and other places where large numbers of people gather are designed to focus on particular people or identify criminal activity. These types of images are covered by the Act, but if a general scene is recorded without an incident occurring, the pictures are not covered.
In summary, if the image recorded is aimed at learning about a particular person’s activities, then it’s covered by the act.”

The search page is here:

I’ve just been playing around with their database. This database contains ALL DP records so you have to look out for mention of CCTV. The first thing I notice is it isn’t very well programmed. You have to put the postcode in with a space between the two parts of the postcode so SW11AA doesn’t work, but SW1 1AA does. [As an aside, this is the postcode for Fuckingham Palace, which returns THE PRIVATE SECRETARY FOR THE HOUSEHOLD OF HRH THE PRINCESS ROYAL, and one of the dataclasses Princess Ann records is ‘Sexual Life’ – I would love to see the subcategories she records for her employees sexual life ]. You can search on the first part of a postcode ie SW1 but if more than 100 records are found then none are returned and you are asked to refine your search. Again, sloppy, sloppy programming – I doubt any private or activist database would be this hard to search so it almost seems half-hearted, ‘security through obscurity’.

So I started searching on CCTV systems I know about. I searched on the postcode of an industrial estate that is ringed with a sophisticated CCTV system, The individual companies CCTV within that estate were returned, but no mention was made of the estates CCTV. I don’t know why and will submit a further question to the ICO about this, but at best it takes them weeks to respond. The cameras are obviously sophisticated not to be exempt from the various acts. It may be a police system and perhaps these are exempt, or it may be one of the 90% illegal systems. I’ll ask the ICO, and if I get no intelligible response, I’ll test it by breaking one of the cameras and waiting for the police to respond. Here is a sample record for a legal CCTV system – I wonder what would happen if someone committed a criminal act on the 22nd of October at that location ? There must be a lot of registered systems whose registrations are about to expire…

Illegal CCTV Update

CameraWatch
CameraWatch is an independent, not-for-profit, self-funding advisory body* that will support organisations impacted by CCTV and their understanding and compliance with current policy and legislation:

Nearly all cameras illegal, says watchdog : Times

New justice minister to launch CCTV advisory body : The Firm

Hidden CCTV

The ‘bug’ sweeper; Pro Hunter overview:

Maplins Bug Sweeper

Surveillance of Nottingham city centre

Newsnight’s ‘Ethical Man’ interviews Joss and goes with Plane Stupid to visit the head of BAA with a copy of the Tyndall Centre’s paper, ‘Growth scenarios for EU & UK aviation: contradictions with climate policy’. Not surprisingly they didn’t want to read it

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtA7_2jPNR4]

Collected Plane Stupid YouTube Videos

http://www.youtube.com/lmmesq