The UK continues to slide into authoritarianism. This is not something the people have asked for. Not looking forward to how this plays out if they get a Reform (far right) government next election, like all the polls seem to think.
Reform isn’t even close to “far right.” Are they trying to defund the NHS? Get rid of government pensions? Immigration restriction isn’t “far right.” The sharp curtailment of immigration from Britain’s colonies was enacted in 1968 under a Labour government. In the U.S., sharply restricting immigration was a policy that prevailed during FDR, who was the most liberal U.S. president in history. “Far right” is someone like Margaret Thatcher or Ronald Reagan who thought the private sector could fix everything.
It's weird. I would say politically, the UK has no aspirations towards authoritarianism. ANPR has been around for ages, but the state can barely enforce road tax payment. The police have no ambitions for a brutalised US style culture. Reform is a bit of an unknown, but even they started making murmurs about how Trump is taking it a bit too far.
And yet undoubtedly the UK keeps introducing these privacy-hostile mechanisms, and it's not even clear what for. There is no obvious reason, not a pragmatic one, not a nefarious one (IMO).
On digging further: OK, this is not really creating anything at all, it's just merging the NCA and various existing regional organised crime outfits together into one body.
Given the ubiquitous CCTV coverage the UK has and has had for some time, I would suspect they've had nationwide facial recognition for a while already. Just on the down-low.
UK has problems with civil liberties but Epoch Times is not news. You're more informed reading about Aliens from the tabloid at Kroger than reading this.
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[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 51.1 ms ] threadAnd yet undoubtedly the UK keeps introducing these privacy-hostile mechanisms, and it's not even clear what for. There is no obvious reason, not a pragmatic one, not a nefarious one (IMO).
That said I can't imagine any government willingly giving up the power grabbed by Labour.
And what exactly do they think the NCA is?
[National Crime Agency]
On digging further: OK, this is not really creating anything at all, it's just merging the NCA and various existing regional organised crime outfits together into one body.