{"id":91228,"date":"2024-08-27T04:00:33","date_gmt":"2024-08-27T08:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=91228"},"modified":"2024-08-26T22:36:47","modified_gmt":"2024-08-27T02:36:47","slug":"britain-as-the-modern-panopticon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2024\/08\/27\/britain-as-the-modern-panopticon\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain as the modern Panopticon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jeremy Bentham proposed a new kind of prison in the 1700s, one where all of the prisoners in their cells were under constant observation by the guards. What sounds like a horrific way to live to any sensible rational person seems to have a fascinating appeal to the kind of micromanaging, busybody control freak<\/a> who runs for office in British politics today:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

An illustration of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon prison.
Drawing by Willey Reveley, 1791.<\/p><\/div>\n

In Britain authorities use cameras to monitor private individuals in real time. They track cars using number plate software, and human beings using facial recognition software and analysis of gait.<\/p>\n

The rationale for these intrusive measures is to prevent illegal activity as well as recording crimes for use in trials.<\/p>\n

This troubles many since it places unsupervised control mechanisms in the hands of politicians and authorities increasingly out of touch with the interests of the majority.<\/p>\n

Full-spectrum surveillance<\/strong><\/p>\n

The British Government has recently threatened to use this surveillance technology to clamp down on “extremists”.<\/p>\n

Currently that means anti-immigration protestors, although there is provision for “anti-establishment” protestors too.<\/p>\n

There is much Britain’s political class will not tolerate in the people who elevate them to power.<\/p>\n

They have promised to relentlessly hound detestables using advanced spy technology, principally facial recognition software. This is specifically designed to identify individuals and track their movements in real time.<\/p>\n

None of this has been requested by the public, and polls reflect considerable unease, particularly with facial recognition software, a powerful tool few are comfortable with.<\/p>\n

Advocates of surveillance claim this erosion to our privacy is a necessary step to tackle crime. Cameras enable the police and authorities to identify criminals as well as detect and record the crimes they commit.<\/p>\n

To the casual observer it sounds plausible and even reasonable. We won’t be using it to spy on you, only them. It has some public benefits.<\/p>\n

This seems like a workable idea. So why is it so useless at stopping a very visible crime?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jeremy Bentham proposed a new kind of prison in the 1700s, one where all of the prisoners in their cells were under constant observation by the guards. What sounds like a horrific way to live to any sensible rational person seems to have a fascinating appeal to the kind of micromanaging, busybody control freak who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,84,28,53],"tags":[343,98,720,92,911],"class_list":["post-91228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-government","category-media","category-politics","tag-crimeandpunishment","tag-police","tag-protest","tag-software","tag-surveillance"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-nJq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91228"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91230,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91228\/revisions\/91230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}