Tagged intelligence
Durham Police unveils ‘bodycam intelligence database’
PHOTO: West Yorkshire Police
One of the UK’s smallest police forces, Durham Police, is reportedly gathering video captured by officers’ body worn cameras to create a ‘troublemakers’ database – contravening national guidance that officers should not use the technology as an ‘intelligence-gathering tool’.
Body Worn Video cameras, or ‘bodycams’ as they are more usually known, are now a global phenomenon. Most UK police forces use them routinely, as do forces in the US, Australia and Europe. Nor is it just the police that is using this technology: bodycams are routinely worn by bailiffs, security guards, even traffic wardens and council workers.
This is arguably one of the biggest single expansions of surveillance capacity since the introduction of CCTV, and one that is highly profitable for bodycam manufacturers such as Axon (formerly Taser International). Read more
Extraordinary judgment rubber-stamps unfounded link between anti-fracking and extremism
PHOTO: Peter Titmuss / Shutterstock
The Information Commissioner, in rejecting an appeal by Netpol over the refusal of the police to release details of a programme to ‘deradicalise extremists’, has endorsed unfounded and unsubstantiated links between anti-fracking protests and the threat of terrorism.
In October 2015, we asked Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside police for details of referrals made in the prior ten months through Channel, a ‘counter radicalisation’ process that is part of the government’s anti-terrorism Prevent strategy. Channel supposedly offers voluntary support to people identified as “vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism” and although there are a number of agencies involved in it, the police play a central role in its delivery. Rather than overall statistics, we asked specifically for the number of individuals seen as allegedly at risk through their involvement in anti-fracking campaigns.
Our requests were the result of concerns raised with us by campaigners from the region who were angered that their opposition to fracking had been used as an excuse to refer them to Channel, in most cases by universities or further education colleges. All related to an alleged ‘risk’ to adults rather than children.
In a startling determination, the Information Commissioner has said:
Channel may be appropriate for anyone who is vulnerable to being drawn into any form of terrorism… It follows from this that, for a referral to be made to Channel, it must be suspected that an individual is at risk of becoming involved in terrorist related activity.
In effect, the Commissioner is insisting nobody is referred unless there is a good reason for doing so – even if this is for nothing more than expressing legitimate political opinions about fracking. Read more
Report highlights ‘chilling effect’ on freedom to protest against fracking
Netpol has published a new report, ‘Protecting the Protectors: Monitoring the Policing of Anti-Fracking Protests since 2014’, which summarises our activities, findings and analysis of the policing of protests against fracking since 2014.
Drawing extensively on discussions with anti-fracking campaigners, as well as our own observations at prospective fracking sites, the report covers our
- •Engagement with – and development of resources for – anti-fracking campaigners
- Concerns with the policing of anti-fracking demonstrations and camps
- The intrusive surveillance of anti-fracking campaigners; and
- The opaque relationship between the police and the fracking industry .
We have argued that the way policing operations are planned for anti-fracking protests, the scale of intrusive surveillance against campaigners and ‘zero tolerance’ attitudes towards civil disobedience has a cumulative ‘chilling effect’ on freedoms of assembly and expression:
When coupled with an unfounded association with serious criminality and ‘extremism’ and an unwillingness by police to accommodate protests without routinely making arrests, this can start to quickly chip away at campaign groups’ support and participation and have a disruptive impact on their effectiveness and activities.
With the imminence of new test drilling and exploration sites around the country, the report also outlines the next phase of our campaigning work between now and September 2018.
Your can download a copy of the report here [
, 1.2 Mb]
Is dialogue with Police Liaison Officers really ‘voluntary’?
A cluster of Police Liaison Officers at the March against Austerity in June 2014. PHOTO: Netpol
Nearly a year after we first raised concerns about new guidelines on the policing of anti-fracking protests, we have finally had some answers to questions we raised with the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC).
In the third of four posts, we look at police attitudes to the use of ‘dialogue’ and ‘liaison’ and whether senior officers have a different understanding from protesters about what these words really mean. Earlier posts cover intelligence-gathering operations and body-worn cameras at anti-fracking protests. Read more
Police chiefs reject body-worn video camera privacy concerns
Body-worn video cameras on police officers in Nottinghamshire. PHOTO: Netpol
Police chiefs show extraordinary lack of interest in privacy issues
Nearly a year after Netpol first raised concerns about new guidelines on the policing of anti-fracking protests, we have finally received some answers to questions we raised with the National Police Chiefs Council.
In the second of four posts, we look at the police’s attitude to the use of body-worn cameras and the implications for protesters’ individual privacy.
In Netpol’s briefing to the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) last year we raised, within wider concerns about the level of intensive and sustained surveillance targeted at anti-fracking protesters, the particular issues of photography and police body-worn video (BWV).
The NPCC guidance makes it clear that police will use live video sources, including video cameras worn by individual officers, supplemented by social media sources. Read more
Police refuse to rule out using undercover officers at anti-fracking protests
PHOTO: Frack Free Greater Manchester
National Police Chiefs Council insists using controversial covert undercover tactics is a matter for local police commanders
In July 2015, the National Police Chiefs Council published new guidance on operations targeting anti-fracking protests. In response, Netpol produced a detailed briefing raising eighteen questions about the scale and tactics of policing operations and the necessity of undertaking significant intelligence-gathering targeting opponents of fracking. Now, nearly a year on, we have finally received a reply from Norfolk Assistant Chief Constable (ACC) Sarah Hamlin, of the NPCC’s National Protest Working Group.
In the first of four posts examining what her answers tell us about police attitudes to the policing of protest, we look at intelligence-gathering and the labelling of protesters as ‘extremists’. Read more
The right to freedom of assembly – what has changed over the last three years?
Anti-Fascist protesters kettled outside Walthamstow Town Hall. PHOTO: Pete Maclaine | Shutterstock.com
The UN’s Special Rapporteur Maina Kiai is visiting the UK next week. We assess what has changed in relation to the freedom to take part in protests – and what issues remain a concern – since his last official visit three years ago.
Netpol was one of a number of groups who met Maina Kiai, the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, when he last visited the UK in January 2013. His report on that visit was published in June 2013 [, 588 kB].
Next week we are meeting him again. Here are some issues we think he should consider – and a reminder of how in a number of important respects, little has changed since his last report. Read more
Netpol’s submission to Joint Committee on the Draft Investigatory Powers Bill
PHOTO: © Susan Melkisethian, CC BY NC ND 2.0
Just before Christmas, Netpol made a submission to Joint Committee on the Draft Investigatory Powers Bill, which is examining the government’s proposed changes to legislation on the interception and retention of communications data and bulk personal datasets by the police and the security and intelligence agencies
UPDATED: 12 February 2016: on the issue of thematic warrants – the use of targeted interception against groups of people who share a common purpose – the Joint Committee has acknowledged in its report [, 3.4 Mb] that:
“Witnesses expressed concerns about the contexts in which these powers could be deployed. The Network for Police Monitoring highlighted the possibility that “in the context of protest policing, this extends the use of surveillance activities to any individual associated with a protest groups… Not only does the surveillance extend to individuals themselves engaging in (possibly low-level) criminal activity, it arbitrarily extends it to all individuals believed to share a ‘common purpose’ with them.”
The Committee goes on to call, in Recommendation 38, for an amendment to the the language of the Bill “so that targeted interception and targeted equipment interference warrants cannot be used as a way to issue thematic warrants concerning a very large number of people”.
Much of the opposition to the Draft Investigatory Powers Bill has rightly focused on requirements for internet providers to store records of websites visited for up to a year and on powers for the security services and police to hack into and bug computers and phones. Both already have a sorry track record of repeatedly abusing wide-reaching surveillance powers. Our submission sets out to tackle the impact on protest and looks specifically at one issue that we have raised before: how easy it is to use powers intended for ‘serious’ criminality against far more minor illegal actions that are almost overwhelmingly peaceful. Read more
Activists can help European case against protest surveillance
PHOTO: Matt Brown on Flickr
Can you help us challenge the domestic extremism database?
In March 2015, the Supreme Court ruled that the gathering and retention of Brighton campaigner John Catt’s personal data by police, while he took part in protests, was lawful. Mr Catt has now lodged an application in the European Court of Human Rights, seeking a ruling that by monitoring and retaining information about people’s lawful political activities the UK is violating the privacy rights of its citizens. Read more
Resisting surveillance – even at St Pancras International
Protesters kettled at London Eurostar solidarity action. PHOTO: indyrikki
It remains unlawful for police to require identification and submission to filming as a condition for release from a kettle
The decision by British Transport Police (BTP) to use Railway Byelaws [, 174 kB] to obtain personal details from people taking part in recent Calais solidarity action does not change the basic advice to protesters – you do not have to consent to having your photograph taken or comply with demands to provide your name and address as a condition of release from a kettle.
The principle that the police have no powers to force people to give their details, or comply with police filming and photography, simply because they are held in a kettle, is contained in the High Court ruling on the Mengesha case in 2013. Lord Justice Moses made it clear that “it was not lawful for the police to maintain the containment for the purposes of obtaining identification, whether by questioning or by filming. It follows that it was not lawful to require identification to be given and submission to filming as the price for release.” Read more