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Monday, March 22, 2010

Fried Pork too spicy for public?


Police first to use Taser software
The United States firm that makes the Taser is hailing a move by New Zealand Police to buy software that will make it easier to monitor Taser use as a "watershed" for its business. Police are installing a system called Evidence.com that will let them securely store, analyse and manage thousands of videos from cameras attached to Tasers, under a three-year contract. The footage can be used as evidence in court cases.

"stored securely within the New Zealand Police system" sounds aspirational and hopeful rather than secure doesn't it? It is exceptionally odd that now we have bought this softwear to monitor all Taser cam footage that the NZ Police still refuse under the ridiculous defense of 'privacy' to release Taser cam footage to the public. I say ridiculous because we have entire TV shows made up of suspected criminals with their faces blurred, the privacy issue can easily be dealt with by pixelating peoples faces.

The reason I suspect the footage is NOT being released, and remember the Taser cams were sold by the Police to the public as a safety guard on excesses of use by the Police, the reason the footage is not being released is because the use of Tasers are much more tightly regulated than what many would realize and footage could easily identify such oversteps. The Police can't simply use Tasers for cohersion and there has to be a specific threat identified before Police can taser, also if our use of them is anything like the overseas experience, many being tasered will suffer from mental health issues and tasering the mentally ill won't help with the Police campaign to sell the taser to the public as everyones best friend.

The ease of tracking these images with this softwear now makes any claim that the footage can't be released once pixelated a scam, if the Police want to build good faith with the public then they have to open themselves to public scrutiny.

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