You make some good points here. I agree that the London congestion charging scheme is harder to argue against; the CCTV aspects worry me, but it has a definite and specific benefit. (Reducing traffic in central London).
How much do you know about the congestion charging scheme? Does it record information as fine grained as "on 11/01/07, 10:53 am, you were on Mornington Crescent Edgware Road going East" or as general as "on 11/01/07 you went somewhere in central London"? It's a difference of degree, not type, but at least we can feel that with the second case, data is not being collected merely for the sake of it.
There's been talk of extending that scheme over the rest of the country, and my response to that would be: only if it's really unavoidable. If you can show that it really would be beneficial to set up a controlled zone in central Edinburgh, then so be it, but don't do it just because you can.
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Date: 2007-01-11 02:21 pm (UTC)How much do you know about the congestion charging scheme? Does it record information as fine grained as "on 11/01/07, 10:53 am, you were on
Mornington CrescentEdgware Road going East" or as general as "on 11/01/07 you went somewhere in central London"? It's a difference of degree, not type, but at least we can feel that with the second case, data is not being collected merely for the sake of it.There's been talk of extending that scheme over the rest of the country, and my response to that would be: only if it's really unavoidable. If you can show that it really would be beneficial to set up a controlled zone in central Edinburgh, then so be it, but don't do it just because you can.