Police stop & ID in U.K. shopping centres?

[Gate Keeper]

In Kenya, it is a legal requirement to carry an ID Card at all times, its called a Foreigners Certificate and it looks like a plastic UK driving licence. What I do not like about being stopped by the police is how it quickly degenerates into "have you a little something for me, have you any alcohol or cigarettes?" I wonder if I look the type, who is constantly buzzed up on booze and fags.

I don't drink and I do not smoke. From those who are meant to protect and to serve, the police is disappointing and how that sort of thing gets up my nose. Corruption, through the abuse of stop and check - its not that anything like that would ever happen in the UK.

[Daveart]

Hi Mark sorry did not get back to you 46 degrees does not feel quite as hot as it is a dryer heat, and very often get a cooling breeze from the Atlantic ocean.
but cooler in the winter at around 23 to 26 degrees and cooler in the North where most of the wolves are, but you have to be quick to photograph them as they quickly disappear into the woodlands.

[Jim Ford]

Originally Posted by Gate Keeper

In Kenya, it is a legal requirement to carry an ID Card at all times, its called a Foreigners Certificate and it looks like a plastic UK driving licence. What I do not like about being stopped by the police is how it quickly degenerates into "have you a little something for me, have you any alcohol or cigarettes?" I wonder if I look the type, who is constantly buzzed up on booze and fags.

I don't drink and I do not smoke. From those who are meant to protect and to serve, the police is disappointing and how that sort of thing gets up my nose. Corruption, through the abuse of stop and check - its not that anything like that would ever happen in the UK.

A few years ago my partner had a Kenyan student as a lodger. She was reliant on financial support from the Kenyan government. The U.K. Kenyan Embassy was supposed to regularly send her a cheque, but it was often delayed for several months. When I phoned the embassy I was told that "The cheque's on my desk and I'm signing it now" and "We're men of the World."! The official was obviously paying the money into his account to earn interest, and paying out at the last minute. The student said that corruption was rife in Kenya and that it was "Boy's Town"!

Jim

[Bruce Clarke]

I was stopped in February at the newly reopened Westgate shopping centre in Oxford by a security guard. It is private property. I thought it was because I looked like I was photographing the infrastructure, so a security concern. It turned out he thought I looked like a pro with a 'proper' camera, and so should have sought permission, and no doubt paid them something. I got an apology from marketing in the end. There's a thread on Flickr with the details: https://www.flickr.com/groups/oxford...7692958176505/

[drmarkf]

Interesting, thanks Bruce.

We should either be paranoid or entirely relaxed about facial recognition depending on our individual point of view, since it is currently virtually useless: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44089161

[Graham_of_Rainham]

What I find worrying is the rise of AI in image enhancement.

We all know what happens when the machines becomes "sentient"

And as for filling in the blanks: Did we not learn anything from Jurassic Park

[Bruce Clarke]

Originally Posted by drmarkf

Interesting, thanks Bruce.

We should either be paranoid or entirely relaxed about facial recognition depending on our individual point of view, since it is currently virtually useless: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44089161

Indeed Mark, I thought I was a marked man after that, but they claim they don't have facial recognition. It's only a matter of time though I'm sure.

[Miketoll]

Interesting thread. If I wanted to record security devices in a shopping center I would amble slowly with my phone to my ear apparently in deep conversation whilst all the time shooting a video in 4K. The wide angle lenses in phones would mean everything you wanted would be in the shot and single frames could be pulled of anything of particular interest. I once went into a crowded pub with my camera round my neck with a wide angle lens on it (28 or 24mm, can't remember which). I never looked at what I was shooting at the time of shooting, my hand just steadying my camera against my abdomen and my thumb just resting on the shutter button. Got some great shots and no-one realized what I was doing. Did the same thing at a wedding reception with a Canon DSLR with it's noisy mirror, it would be even better with an Olympus and it's silent electronic shutter.
Or how about having the camera hanging from your neck completely hands free while holding and looking at your phone all the time triggering the camera when you want to remotely via the phone!

[TimP]

Or wear a shirt with a breast pocket, pop the phone in there and set to record and then just wander around, occasionally stopping to ‘look’ at things!

Re: CCTV images, none of the examples I’ve ever seen be it on the TV news or on-line media has been worth diddly squat, I doubt I could recognize myself let alone try to identify an unknown person. Surely nowadays they should be capable of recording decent images even in challenging light conditions.

[shenstone]

Originally Posted by TimP

Surely nowadays they should be capable of recording decent images even in challenging light conditions.

They are..

Older systems that people have had installed may not be, but new ones are generally decent cameras

In the main it's down to storage capacities - I've found you record "good enough" for purpose depending on how long you want to be able to go back and whether it's "always on" or motion capture etc makes a difference to how much you can store and therefore the compression ratio's you set.

regards
Andy

[TimP]

You don’t work in IT infrastructure do you?

I ask because before I retired I suffered from an infrastructure team that found disk space and the backing up thereof to seemingly be their personal property . If something is worth storing then do it properly, yes it costs but surely for something like crime prevention and forensics then if you don’t do it properly then you might as well not do it at all!
Most CCTV storage is surely offline which can be fairly cheap, even in an enterprise scenario, so no excuse for not having full resolution images.

[shenstone]

No, but I have a team who work for me who do

It's all about cost effectiveness, yes we can store petabytes, but it costs. We'd happily store anything that someone wants to pay for... and to quote from my Yorkshire heritage "you don't get 'owt fer nowt"

A lot of the systems out there simply do not have the capacity because people do not have the need for forensic level details to be stored for years and years. For 99.9% of the time that's not information that anyone is ever going to look at and if they do then 99.9% of that time some information like build and clothing is more than sufficient. Systems are sized appropriately to that.

Regards
Andy