[LINK] Surveillance in extremis

[Richard Chirgwin]

What the hell, the racket is deafening anyhow ...

It's not unreasonable to react badly when someone is clearly using a 
steam-hammer to crack a walnut, and doing so in a way which provides 
nothing of value to the ratepayer at all.

The RFID does not help anyone prove who may - or - may - not be doing 
the wrong thing, because an object in a bin is *not* evidence against 
the owner of the bin (example: chronic loading up of bins by nearby 
builders; I saw with some horror some old fibro dumped atop my bin, 
removed it so it didn't go through the crusher, and am still trying to 
find some way to get rid of it).

Argument number one, "catch recalcitrants" is crap - and this isn't 
about "RFID or no RFID", it's about the value of the surveillance.

The second issue, I think from Marghanita, is that you have to provide 
value in return. This is a standard IT industry pitch - and I'm going to 
resist it very strongly. The idea is that "if you give people a trinket 
they will sell their rights", and I'm utterly sick to death of hearing 
it trotted out. "Stuff the trinkets," says RC, "just leave me alone."

Third point. The *only* reason for identifying the bin is so as to 
associate the bin identity with some other entry in a database. I 
absolutely cannot think of any reason to do so, because of point (1) 
above: bin identity is an absolutely meaningless metric.

What has really happened is this: a "PR placement" has gone horribly 
wrong. The idea was to get an IT magazine headline along the lines of 
"Radio Tags Help Towards a Greener Ryde", which then becomes part of the 
sales pitch to Holroyd council, which then joins with Ryde in becoming 
the pitch to Hills and Hornsby, and so on; and eventually the industry 
gets up at the Local Government Association conference with 22 success 
stories on the powerpoint slide, and all those customers can't be wrong, 
can they?

With the PR pitch dying in the bum, everything else can only be 
considered a rearguard action to try and rescue something from the wreck.

RC

Geoffrey Ramadan wrote:
> Jan Whitaker wrote:
>> At 12:30 PM 28/08/2006, Geoff Ramadan wrote:
>>> I am curious to know if you or anyone else would have the same 
>>> concerns if they had stuck a simple "barcode" on the bin with a 
>>> unique number?
>>
>> Probably I would have concerns. 
> Are you concerns "heightened" because they use RFID? And if so why?
>
>> But it depends on what they do with the information and why they are 
>> collecting it. They must comply with privacy acts and inform people 
>> that this information is being collected and why, for one thing.
> Though I agree with this, but don't the council already have a privacy 
> statement which I assume allows them to collect information for the 
> purpose of tabulating their rates and fees?
>
> Or put it another way, what is different about this (registering bin 
> deposits/pickups) to what they are already doing, and information they 
> already have about ratepayers?
>
>
>> And I haven't read all my email yet to see if anyone could explain if 
>> services would be denied if someone other than the household to whom 
>> the bin had been assigned put 'bad' stuff in the bin.
> One scenario I have been told is after three warnings, you get to go 
> to "waste management school"!
>>
>> These types of systems need to have controls around them so that 
>> people aren't denied services for things that happen beyond their 
>> control. If the point is to monitor the recycling services that are 
>> contracted to provide those services, that is one thing. But if they 
>> are used to play big brother, or bin brother as they have been dubbed 
>> in Ireland, then they are despicable.
> Agree
>
> Reg
> Geoffrey Ramadan
>>
>> Jan Whitaker
>> JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria
>> jwhit at janwhitaker.com           business: http://www.janwhitaker.com 
>> <http://www.janwhitaker.com/>    personal: 
>> http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/
>> commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
>>
>> 'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, 
>> there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005
>> _ __________________ _
>>
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