VOR DEBATE - Big Brother is watching you

Photographs of millions of people are being put on a national police database to try to stop criminals escaping detection simply by moving around the country. From March next year detectives will be able to compare images of suspects with around 16 million photos. The new photo system is an extension of the police national database. The database was established in 2011 following the murder of two schoolgirls – Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Cambridgeshire.

Their killer, Ian Huntley, was able to get a job working in a school even though he had a criminal record.

Currently the national database holds information on millions of people who have been convicted, cautioned or arrested, as well as others not suspected or convicted of crimes.

Detectives say the new photographic technology is a ‘game changer’.

But civil liberties groups are concerned about what data should be held on the database.

VoR’s Daniel Cinna discusses this with Nick Pickles, the director of the civil liberties group Big Brother Watch; Ken Lodge, the director of the security firm SIP Services International Limited; Rob Hastings, a freelance journalist, and Annie Machon, a Former Intelligence Officer for MI5.