After we wrote about the inaccuracy of facial recognition systems, we received such a detailed comment on it from David Moss that we asked if we could make it a blog entry. David, a former IT consultant, writes widely on the subject, most recently for The Guardian. Biometrics based on face recognition do not work. [...]
We were furious when we wrote about a CCTV camera that was pointing into somebody’s home. It seemed an appalling invasion of privacy but, while we felt sympathy for whoever lived behind the net curtains, at least we had no idea who lived there or what the CCTV operator actually saw. And then somebody sent [...]
We wrote the other day about how the oft-quoted figure of 4.2m CCTV cameras in Britain is utter Zebu and explained the less than scientific way the number arose. We’re glad to say that somebody is trying to find out how many cameras there spying on us. Big Brother Watch put in Freedom of Information [...]
Andy Rennison, the Forensic Science Regulator, is to be given the job of overseeing Britain’s CCTV network and implementing a national CCTV strategy. About bloody time, though why we are spied on by so many of the hideous things when the Home Office’s own studies say they are virtually useless for cutting any crime other [...]
Ever buy a ticket from a “budget” airline and find yourself staggered by the total cost when you get to the settling-up webpage? Writing Complete and Utter Zebu, we wanted to see how much Ryanair’s advertised “free flights” to Milan cost. Once everything was added in, the total cost for the return flight was £103.92, [...]
When we last wrote about those infuriating “Sorry you were out” cards, the attitude of Royal Mail’s management seemed to be that those of us who felt the cards were slipped through our letterboxes even when we were in were deluded. “If there any incidents of this happening, we need to know. We want to [...]
In an interview this weekend, Chancellor Alistair Darling referred to ID cards, saying there was probably no need for them because biometric passports, which carry the same information, would be sufficient. This has been taken by many as a sign that the project to get every Briton to have an ID card is likely to [...]
Bankers have been coming in for some stick recently in Britain. But even they might not have the cheek to produce the “special” offer currently available at the Central Pacific Bank in Hawaii. A reader sent The Consumerist website a copy of an ad that offers Sony products for those giving the bank large sums [...]
Given how little it buys, you would hardly think it worthwhile forging a pound coin. Yet the Royal Mint says that the number of counterfeit pound coins has doubled in just five years. It reckons that over 35 million currently in circulation are counterfeit. That’s something like one in every 40. So, whether you’re aware [...]
In The Maltese Falcon, Kasper Gutman offers the toast: “Here’s to plain speaking and clear understanding.” Sadly, for many organisations and politicians, they prefer dissembling, waffle and gobbledegook to plain speaking, presumably hoping to pull the wool over our eyes. So three cheers, yet again, for the Plain English campaign, which has once more announced [...]
If ever there is a body that should be straight with the public, surely it is the police? Sadly, it appears that honesty is in short supply even in the police force. As well as the fibs told about the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes in Stockwell tube station in 2005, there were all [...]
The past few months haven’t been too good for President Sarkozy of France on the credibility front. There were several reports of the lengths he goes to to conceal his true height and then the rumpus over his Facebook page (see our earlier post) which showed him hacking down the Berlin Wall, even though it [...]
PETA, the American animal-rights organisation, has a new campaign featuring, as so often, scantily-clad models. The aim of the ads is to get people to “Always Adopt, Never Buy” (click to see it more clearly). It’s a good idea that as many unwanted pets as possible should be given good homes. But, as we had [...]
The London Assembly’s Transport Committee has issued a report called “Too Close For Comfort” about passengers’ experience of the London Underground. It concludes that overcrowding can be so bad that Tube travellers have to “psych themselves up” to cope with it. At peak times, passengers are regularly squashed in at a density of four or [...]
You may have seen news reports today about official population figures for 2008, which show that the country appears to be headed for a population of 70 million by 2029. Much as we admire the ONS for taking the government to task for spinning statistics, you have to wonder about how accurate these figures are, [...]
Animal rights group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has demanded that the Georgia Bulldogs American Football team replace its recently-deceased mascot, Uga and Seventh, with a robot, saying that: “By choosing a humane alternative to the use of live animals as school mascots, UGA can show that compassion always wins”. After Uga [...]
2009 is set to be the fifth hottest “since records began”, according to the Met Office. Even though there are still five weeks to go, that sounds pretty scary. Surprising, even, given the ridicule directed at the Met Office for forecasting in April that we were set for “a barbecue summer”. We certainly didn’t get [...]
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