ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the police in the UK. It considers the traditional monitoring of groups and individuals by the police, unmediated by technology. The surveillance methods of the police are therefore extremely varied. Typical approaches, though, involve stake-outs, still cameras, video cameras such as closed-circuit television (CCTV), automated number plate recognition (ANPR), identity (ID) cards, wiretaps, undercover officers, running informants, and simply being a presence in public. Each of these methods is more or less intrusive, and each more or less discriminating in its scope. The chapter looks at a number of these methods. It also considers CCTV, ANPR, mobile phone tower spoofing, and body-worn cameras as recent technologies that have each raised ethical issues. Finally, it looks at the issue of a secret police. While it may be assumed that there is no literal "secret police" in most liberal democracies today, considering the techniques and approaches of groups such as the Gestapo and the Stasi can be informative.
