Police Databank on Thousands of Protesters in UK

Revealed: police databank on thousands of protesters
Films and details of campaigners and journalists may breach Human Rights Act


Shocking footage shot by police, accompanied by their own critical commentary, shows how their officers monitored campaigners and the media – and demanded personal information – at last August's climate camp demonstration in Kent Link to this video.

Police are targeting thousands of political campaigners in surveillance operations and storing their details on a database for at least seven years, an investigation by the Guardian can reveal.

Photographs, names and video ­footage of people attending protests are ­routinely obtained by surveillance units and stored on an "intelligence system". The ­Metropolitan police, which has ­pioneered surveillance at demonstrations and advises other forces on the tactic, stores details of protesters on Crimint, the general database used daily by all police staff to catalogue criminal intelligence. It lists campaigners by name, allowing police to search which demonstrations or political meetings individuals have attended.

Disclosures through the Freedom of Information Act, court testimony, an interview with a senior Met officer and police surveillance footage obtained by the Guardian have ­established that ­private information about activists ­gathered through surveillance is being stored without the knowledge of the people monitored.

Police surveillance teams are also ­targeting journalists who cover demonstrations, and are believed to have ­monitored members of the press during at least eight protests over the last year.


for complete articles:

Revealed: police databank on thousands of protesters
March 6, 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/06/police-surveillance-protesters-journalists-climate-kingsnorth


Caught on film and stored on database: how police keep tabs on activists
Police footage obtained by the Guardian has revealed the crude monitoring methods deployed across the country against protesters, thousands of whom have their personal details stored on criminal intelligence systems for up to seven years
March 6, 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/06/police-surveillance-database-activists-intelligence


Police surveillance: 'They're focusing on the press more than the protesters'
Videographer Jason Parkinson and photographer Jess Hurd describe to Paul Lewis how they are followed by police and questioned under terrorism legislation
March 6, 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/audio/2009/mar/06/surveillance-justice