If ya thought them cameras all over the place was creepy...

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If ya thought them cameras all over the place was creepy...

Postby rickshaw92 » Sat Mar 06, 2010 9:04 pm

Tracking U.K. trash bins raises a stink
Microchips can monitor families' garbage habits
Published On Sat Mar 06 2010

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So-called intelligent garbage cans are fitted with microchip sensors. (March, 5, 2010)
PETER MORRISON/AP PHOTO
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Gregory Katz Associated Press

LONDON–It's the new front in the nanny state: Microchips placed in garbage bins to monitor how much people throw away.

A pro-privacy group warns in a new report that more than 2.6 million of the chips have been surreptitiously installed in what is seen as a first step toward charging those who toss too much.

Proponents say it's a bid to push recycling. Opponents say it stinks.

"They should mind their own business," said Terry Williams, an unemployed Londoner who thinks the government is meddling. "I believe they have gone too far. It's not like we are throwing away anything that is illegal."

The advocacy group Big Brother Watch found through Freedom of Information requests that many local governments, called councils in Britain, are installing the microchips in trash cans distributed to households, but in most cases have not yet activated them – in part because officials know the move would be unpopular.

"They are waiting for the political climate to change before they start using them," said campaign director Dylan Sharpe, who predicted that families that produce large amounts of garbage would be fined.

The trash microchips are now part of the British information grid, which already includes a heavy reliance on closed-circuit television surveillance to monitor the population, particularly on the crowded public transportation system.

"This is yet another piece of surveillance that the councils are taking on in our daily life," said Sharpe. "With this information they can tell if we are home or not, and the information is stored on their database, which is not that secure."



But Gary Hopkins, a councillor in Bristol, said the microchips will be a useful tool in an innovative program to reward people who reduce household waste, not part of a secret plan to charge those who produce high volumes.

"It's voluntary, not compulsory," he said. "A compulsory plan would not work. We've managed to persuade the people of Bristol to participate in the recycling program. We want to encourage the people who aren't using it to join in."

The government's ambitious information-gathering plans go still further. Security officials working on counterterrorism have lobbied for greater powers to track every email, text and phone call made in the U.K. The country already maintains a DNA database that is, per capita, the largest in the world.

The use of microchips in trash bins has spread dramatically in the last year, the new study shows.

Microchips were first fitted into some British trash bins eight years ago, and the debate over whether the state has the right to weigh or otherwise analyze residents' refuse has surfaced periodically since.

Some of the chips are intended to sense the weight of the garbage. Others are meant to track the whereabouts of the bin itself, or check whether it has been emptied.

None of the chips are now used in "pay-as-you-throw" plans. But many believe they are part of a stealth plan to hike fees and fines.

"It makes me very angry," said Nat Spencer, 35, of London. "I've been thinking of moving out, it's gotten that bad."
Im reallly fuclimg pissed but fespite that I can still hit a tarfet at 1000m plus. mayVRVe bnot tonight but it qint beyond the wit if man. Nowhammy.
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