A few weeks ago, I had an email from the Met Police’s mailing list letting me know they had opened up a new heritage centre, which sounded quite interesting.

Alas, only open Mon-Fri, and closing at 4pm meant it has taken a few weeks before I could get along to have a look.

It is not the infamous “black museum” that is housed within Scotland Yard and is not open to the public, ever – although a recent opportunity for a visit due to a charity auction for the police’s benevolent fund got my heart beating, until the auction was suddenly cancelled.

Damn.

That disappointment aside, the press blurb looked interesting enough for me to wander along. Informed that the museum is “opposite West Brompton tube station”, I was a bit wary as I know that opposite the station is the Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre. Surely they haven’t taken over that building?

Nope, and the museum is not by any stretch of the imagination “opposite” the station – more like about 200 yards to the left of the station (map link).

Having found the modern looking building, it is not a bad little museum. It was laid out the way I like museums to be done – with glass cases and exhibits on shelves – and a notable lack of garish plastic or “interactive stuff”. A video playing clips designed to encourage you to join the Special Constables is a bit annoying, but not too bad.

A genial chap popped his head round a corner to ask if I wanted any help, and was happy to leave me to browse around alone.

However, it is tiny! I doubt I was in there for more than 15 minutes all told.

Worth a detour if you are in the Earl’s Court area – but not really not worth a dedicated trip to the area for a visit.

There is a leaflet on the table by the visitor signing book for a Friends Association for the archive, and they do say one of their aims one day is to open a dedicated museum. May that day swiftly arrive.

There is an ongoing and sometimes very contentious debate about the rights of people to take photos in public spaces and the attitude of the police and security officers when they see a camera pointing at something interesting.

There have been many reports of the police, and more often the hobby-bobbies (PCSO) who seem to treat photographers as a threat to be stomped on. Ironically, with the proliferation of cameraphones, the ire of the police and security guards seems to be mainly directed at people holding “old-fashioned” conventional cameras as we are presumably more of a threat.

That anyone being naughty is more likely to surreptitiously use a camera phone than stand boldly in public with a big hunk of electronics in-front of their face seems not to have occurred to people.

Anyhow…. this morning my email pinged to alert me to a new statement from the Met Police (you can subscribe to them) and I was delighted to read that a fairly sensible advisory statement has been issued.

The key message is that the police cannot stop you photos in public, even if citing anti-terrorism acts, but they have the right to question you if you film an officer (or ex-officer!) and can ask to see photos – but not demand that you delete them.

The issue of photography in so called pseudo-public locations, such as shopping centers or the London Underground is not addressed – and it would be good if TfL issued a public statement on the topic as the police have done.

The link to the full document is here, which you are advised to print out a copy if you are a regular photographer – but below I summarise the key points.

Photography advice issued

Members of the public and the media do not need a permit to film or photograph in public places and police have no power to stop them filming or photographing incidents or police personnel.

The Terrorism Act 2000 does not prohibit people from taking photographs or digital images in an area where an authority under section 44 (or S43) is in place.

Officers do have the power to view digital images contained in mobile telephones or cameras carried by a person searched under S44 (and S43) of the Terrorism Act 2000, provided that the viewing is to determine whether the images contained in the camera or mobile telephone are of a kind, which could be used in connection with terrorism. Officers also have the power to seize and retain any article found during the search which the officer reasonably suspects is intended to be used in connection with terrorism.

Any officer making an arrest for an offence under Section 58a must be able to demonstrate a reasonable suspicion that the information was of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.

(the difficulty here is that a photo might be useful to a terrorist – but that I have no intention of passing it to said terrorist – so where does the line get drawn?)

There is however nothing preventing officers asking questions of an individual who appears to be taking photographs of someone who is or has been a member of Her Majesty’s Forces (HMF), Intelligence Services or a constable.

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In conclusion – its a good start and I am pleased that the Police have addressed the issue, although in the grand scheme of things, I think a policy statement, probably from the Mayors office covering all types of locations that photographers are likely to cover within London would be a good idea.

Update:

Sadly, the news that photographers can take photos in public hasn’t reached Chatham yet, where a photographer was arrested under the Terrorism Act only yesterday for taking a photo of a police officer while being quizzed as to why he was taking photos in the local high street.

The Orwellian posters, adverts and their ilk that are going up to warn us to snoop on our neighbours report legitimately suspicious behaviour, such as not recycling the glass bottles have invevitably lead to a website to make you your own fake versions.

Make your own at http://jamesholden.net/billboard/

Via: RailwayEye

Tip to people who make these mock image websites – allow direct linking to the website with the created image. I had to save the image, resize it and upload it to the blog, which also means I can’t just send a link of a joke billboard I made to friends. Yes, it pushes your bandwidth though the roof, but is very good for viral distribution and long term link building/search rankings.

It seems that the Metropolitan Police has turned to Google to place adverts on the internet calling for people to report suspected Right Wing Extremists – and the advert is directing people to the Met Police’s anti-terrorism web pages.

For reasons which are more “gut instinct” than intellectual, I feel really uncomfortable with that.

Surely we live in a free society, and while I personally think hard-right wing political and social views be very yeugh-inducing, I also strongly believe that people have a right to hold whatever views they want. So long as you stay within the law of the land – you can think the world is flat, evolution is false and that Stalin was just misunderstood for all I care. Equally, I expect to be allowed to challenge your views through debate and argument.

I can certainly understand the police wanting to encourage people to report crimes to them – but is holding far-right political views now a crime in the UK?

Would the police (indeed, ARE the police) running adverts headlined with “Muslim Terrorist – Suspect it? Report it. Your call could be vital to us.” How about “Communist Sympathiser – Suspect it? Report it. Your call could be vital to us.”

Again, I can’t put into a detailed intellectual debate why I am uncomfortable with that Google advert, but the discomfort was undeniably heightened by the fact that it appeared on my own blog, specifically the “about me” page, where I comment on my Libertarian political views. Google adverts are targeted by keyword, so someone in the Met Police (or their ad agency) chose what words appearing on a web page should trigger the displaying of the advert – and evidently my combination of political terms set off some sort of alarm and resulted in the advert appearing.

This is just something which makes me very uncomfortable and just feels wrong for the police to be doing in a democratic society.