Tag: Oxford City Council

HP joins the Internet of Things bandwagon

HPMajor vendors have convinced themselves that the Internet of Things (IoT) is the next big thing, and the latest to join the band is Hewlett Packard.

HP said its own version of IoT will allow organisations to manage different sets of IoT sensors, analyse data and use vertical applications on machine to machine devices.

It also claimed to have introduced the first vertical application called the HP Energy Management Pack.

The packages are aimed at communications service providers (CSPs) and is essentially remote management to discover devices, configure the devices and control IoT traffic.

The HP Energy Management Pack is intended to allow the CSPs to give secure home automation and energy control to people, to industries and to councils.

For example, Oxford City Council might want to remotely manage public lights based on profiles, emergencies and on weather conditions. And the pack might let “smart cities” manage parking using sensors.

 

Your binmen are watching you

wheeliesA Freedom of Information (FOI) request made to Oxford City Council has revealed that the folk who pick up your wheelie bins are filming you in secret.

After a wheelie bin in TechEye’s front garden in Oxford wasn’t picked up, we called the council to ask why.

The council said that we didn’t have the bin in the right place for collection and supplied photos showing how we’d offended. We hadn’t, by the way.

Our FOI request asked Oxford City Council which Act of Parliament authorised the filming of people’s houses; how long the footage was kept; whether employees were aware they were being filmed; and whether the information was shared with other authorities internally and externally.

We received the answers to those questions today.

The council said:

1.    There is no specific legislation preventing the CCTV recording of
private property taken from public places (in this case the public
highway). The system is operated in accordance with all the requirements
and the principles of the Human Rights Act 1998, and the Data Protection
Act 1998.

2.    The footage is stored on a hard drive in the vehicle and the image
storage time does fluctuate, but is generally around 8 weeks.

3.    Yes. Staff are fully aware that they are being filmed. A full
consultation with the Unions was undertaken before the cameras were
installed on our vehicles.

4.    No. The system is operated in accordance with all the requirements
and the principles of the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Data Protection
Act 1998 and therefore, has the potential for images to be released, on
request, to the police and/or other agencies.

So there you have it. Your binmen and the council are watching you.

Councils snoop on employees, residents

fingerprintHard evidence shows that UK councils behave far worse than Google and employ cameras to check whether their own employees and residents follow the made up rules council officials operate.

It has emerged CCTV cameras follow every movement of the binmen as they pick up wheelie bins, and binmen are called to task if they get a tiny iota wrong.

A letter from a man called Robert Brown – waste and recycling operations manager at Oxford City Council, a functionary for the body  – confirms that a corporation operating binmen has cameras watching all the time to see what both their employees and residents are up to.

We have asked for full YouTube footage of the probably daily snooping, by back door cameras watching both employees and residents, in the hope there might be transparency.

Brown said to a resident of back water Mill Street, in Oxford: “We have taken the time to check out our inboard cameras and can confirm that your bin was not presented correctly when our operatives came to service your street.”

The resident told TechEye: “My bin was where it had been for the last four and a half year years. It is a narrow street and I would not care to put a bin on the pavement because people are trying to take their children to school and walk on the narrow street.”

Oxford City Council’s Brown produced one sample of video and four photographs to demonstrate the local resident was in the wrong, but posed the question to TechEye about surveillance of both staff and the people that pay Oxford City Council’s functionary bills.

A local resident told TechEye – on conditions of anonymity – that the binmen had been happy to deliver the blue bin to its inevitable consignment in a Grunwald’s vehicle but that he was puzzled that what she thought was a mistake on the behalf of the binmen, turned out to be an act of mass surveillance.

At press time, Oxford City Council was unable to reply because they only operate between the hours of nine to five, Monday to Friday. We’ll try tomorrow to get a definitive answer from Robert Brown – that is to say his representatives on earth, the press officers at Oxford City Council.

As you can see, from the pictures, below  there is a lack of cohesive advice to both binmen and residents.  We at TechEye are also concerned at the lack of transparency and intrusion from Oxford City Council and its representatives.  More on Tuesday.

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