{"id":24136,"date":"2026-07-28T10:37:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T08:37:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/28\/spies-in-the-sky-how-worried-should-we-be-about-the-arrival-of-ai-enabled-smart-lamp-posts\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T10:37:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T08:37:23","slug":"spies-in-the-sky-how-worried-should-we-be-about-the-arrival-of-ai-enabled-smart-lamp-posts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/28\/spies-in-the-sky-how-worried-should-we-be-about-the-arrival-of-ai-enabled-smart-lamp-posts\/","title":{"rendered":"Spies in the sky: how worried should we be about the arrival of AI-enabled smart lamp-posts?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The new breed of camera-equipped streetlights has the potential to fight crime and track down missing persons. Or will it just take Britain one step closer to a surveillance state?<\/p>\n

How would you feel if your neighbourhood lamp-posts could recognise your number plate, and also your face? Maybe you wouldn\u2019t mind, given how long we\u2019ve had automatic number plate recognition and CCTV. What about if that lamp-post could power itself through its own solar panels, and perhaps find another use for any extra power generated \u2013 that would be good, right? This is what Conflow Power Group (CPG) in Warwickshire claims for its iLamps, the first of their kind in the UK.<\/p>\n

What if lamp-posts had the potential to incorporate new AI capability \u2013 gait analysis, suspicious behaviours \u2013 that you haven\u2019t even heard of? This is what the organisation Big Brother Watch worries about. And what if the home secretary had explicitly said she believed in a \u201cpanopticon state\u201d<\/a> \u2013 that is, a state that could watch you at all times (as Shabana Mahmood already has) \u2013 and what if she still had a job when the lamp-post eyes got their updates? Or what if the next home secretary was even keener on hyper-surveillance (hard to imagine), and the street apparatus was already in place? What about all the data this would harvest \u2013 who would own it?<\/p>\n

Continue reading…<\/a>
\nThe new breed of camera-equipped streetlights has the potential to fight crime and track down missing persons. Or will it just take Britain one step closer to a surveillance state?
\nHow would you feel if your neighbourhood lamp-posts could recognise your number plate, and also your face? Maybe you wouldn\u2019t mind, given how long we\u2019ve had automatic number plate recognition and CCTV. What about if that lamp-post could power itself through its own solar panels, and perhaps find another use for any extra power generated \u2013 that would be good, right? This is what Conflow Power Group (CPG) in Warwickshire claims for its iLamps, the first of their kind in the UK.
\nWhat if lamp-posts had the potential to incorporate new AI capability \u2013 gait analysis, suspicious behaviours \u2013 that you haven\u2019t even heard of? This is what the organisation Big Brother Watch worries about. And what if the home secretary had explicitly said she believed in a \u201cpanopticon state\u201d \u2013 that is, a state that could watch you at all times (as Shabana Mahmood already has) \u2013 and what if she still had a job when the lamp-post eyes got their updates? Or what if the next home secretary was even keener on hyper-surveillance (hard to imagine), and the street apparatus was already in place? What about all the data this would harvest \u2013 who would own it? Continue reading…Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The new breed of camera-equipped streetlights has the potential to fight crime and track down missing persons. Or will it just take Britain one step closer to a surveillance state? How would you feel if your neighbourhood lamp-posts could recognise your number plate, and also your face? Maybe you wouldn\u2019t mind, given how long we\u2019ve …<\/p>\n

Spies in the sky: how worried should we be about the arrival of AI-enabled smart lamp-posts?<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":24137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24136"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}