NeilWatson
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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...k-suspicious-rail-passengers-latest-cbh88zqkt
Police should be able to monitor passengers who spend hours on the railway network in case they are pickpockets or sex offenders — or are in need of help — a chief constable has said.
Lucy D’Orsi, the head of the British Transport Police, wants to track Oyster and bank cards to spot “anomalous behaviour” and focus police resources on it.
She told Policing TV: “An example I gave recently is somebody who’s travelling the [London] Underground for six hours. So they tap in and they tap out six hours later? Why is that? Possibly vulnerable, possibly a pickpocket, possibly a predatory sex offender.”
Police can ask Transport for London and Network Rail for specific travel information on a suspect but do not have access to generic information about passenger movements.
D’Orsi said she wanted to look at using data in a “better way”. She added: “Another example is somebody who takes a train from London to Liverpool and gets the return train back. That’s not normal. That’s not what people do.
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“So why is somebody doing that? That could be county lines, somebody’s dropping some drugs up there then coming back down to London.
“So how can we look more broadly at what the data is telling us, and then make the choices of whether we want to use that data or not?”
D’Orsi, who would need enhanced data-sharing agreements with TfL and Network Rail to make the plan work, acknowledged the move could worry privacy groups but denied it was a “Big Brother” move. She said generic behaviour rather than individual commuters would be looked at and claimed it could be done while “recognising any civil rights and civil liberties aspects”.
“We’re not looking for [a commuter’s] data, we’re looking for the data of the predatory sex offender,” she said. “So we’re looking for anomalous behaviour. We’re not looking for you as an individual, we’re looking at the behaviour trends. The trends help us to then put it into the system to understand where we need to focus our policing.”
D’Orsi, 52, also wants far greater access to security cameras on the railways. She called for a central control room for all 100,000 CCTV cameras in use. At present the force has real-time access to 40,000 of the cameras.
In a wide-ranging interview, D’Orsi, the force’s first female leader, said a campaign to ask people to report “pervy bloke stares” on the Tube was giving women the confidence to come forward to complain about unwanted sexual behaviour or sexual offending.
She said: “The more the public and victims can report this to us, the more we can start to understand the prevalence of this in particular areas on particular trains, particular times.
“So we’ll be able to use a variety of policing methods in order to either identify them on that occasion or try to bring preventative measures in to stop people offending in the future.”
She said bystanders often moved carriages to avoid behaviour that made them feel “uncomfortable” but asked them to report it as well.
With the new Premier League football season starting on Friday evening, D’Orsi also called for football banning orders to be extended to the rail network.
She said fans should face consequences for “dreadful behaviour” on trains heading to matches just as they do in stadiums. A small percentage of fans gave football a bad reputation, she argued, adding: “There has to be consequences for poor behaviour.”
D’Orsi said that her force was testing drones to spot trespassers and clear tracks, rather than having staff do it, in a move to save time and money.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...k-suspicious-rail-passengers-latest-cbh88zqkt
Police should be able to monitor passengers who spend hours on the railway network in case they are pickpockets or sex offenders — or are in need of help — a chief constable has said.
Lucy D’Orsi, the head of the British Transport Police, wants to track Oyster and bank cards to spot “anomalous behaviour” and focus police resources on it.
She told Policing TV: “An example I gave recently is somebody who’s travelling the [London] Underground for six hours. So they tap in and they tap out six hours later? Why is that? Possibly vulnerable, possibly a pickpocket, possibly a predatory sex offender.”
Police can ask Transport for London and Network Rail for specific travel information on a suspect but do not have access to generic information about passenger movements.
D’Orsi said she wanted to look at using data in a “better way”. She added: “Another example is somebody who takes a train from London to Liverpool and gets the return train back. That’s not normal. That’s not what people do.
Advertisement
“So why is somebody doing that? That could be county lines, somebody’s dropping some drugs up there then coming back down to London.
“So how can we look more broadly at what the data is telling us, and then make the choices of whether we want to use that data or not?”
D’Orsi, who would need enhanced data-sharing agreements with TfL and Network Rail to make the plan work, acknowledged the move could worry privacy groups but denied it was a “Big Brother” move. She said generic behaviour rather than individual commuters would be looked at and claimed it could be done while “recognising any civil rights and civil liberties aspects”.
“We’re not looking for [a commuter’s] data, we’re looking for the data of the predatory sex offender,” she said. “So we’re looking for anomalous behaviour. We’re not looking for you as an individual, we’re looking at the behaviour trends. The trends help us to then put it into the system to understand where we need to focus our policing.”
D’Orsi, 52, also wants far greater access to security cameras on the railways. She called for a central control room for all 100,000 CCTV cameras in use. At present the force has real-time access to 40,000 of the cameras.
In a wide-ranging interview, D’Orsi, the force’s first female leader, said a campaign to ask people to report “pervy bloke stares” on the Tube was giving women the confidence to come forward to complain about unwanted sexual behaviour or sexual offending.
She said: “The more the public and victims can report this to us, the more we can start to understand the prevalence of this in particular areas on particular trains, particular times.
“So we’ll be able to use a variety of policing methods in order to either identify them on that occasion or try to bring preventative measures in to stop people offending in the future.”
She said bystanders often moved carriages to avoid behaviour that made them feel “uncomfortable” but asked them to report it as well.
With the new Premier League football season starting on Friday evening, D’Orsi also called for football banning orders to be extended to the rail network.
She said fans should face consequences for “dreadful behaviour” on trains heading to matches just as they do in stadiums. A small percentage of fans gave football a bad reputation, she argued, adding: “There has to be consequences for poor behaviour.”
D’Orsi said that her force was testing drones to spot trespassers and clear tracks, rather than having staff do it, in a move to save time and money.
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