Completely flattened by flu, I’ve been reading and watching stuff I usually wouldn’t. It could be the fever addledness but I’m catching more casual references to the high degree of public surveillance in Britain. Cameras, cameras, everywhere as a fact of life.
I get mildly spooked out over posted notices of security filming in store dressing rooms: near naked, vulnerable and not at my best.
Is filming really that pervasive and does it cramp your style just by being there?
Real, not, a drag, not a problem?
In the building where I work, there are more cameras (~100) than there are staff. I don’t think there’s any area that we haven’t got covered by a camera (except the toilets I hope).
It’s certainly pervasive…It’s symptomatic of the modern British obsession of fear of crime - and fear of ‘stranger crime’ which basically meanis muggings, burglary and car crime. One of the defences often used about CCTV is that even when it has no effect on actual crime rates (or rather pushed the crime from the middle-class areas which can afford cameras to the poorer ones which cannot), it reduces the fear of crime. And I’m cynical about all such claims.
From a non-statistical personal stantpoint, I’ve been mugged three times, twice in daylight and once in full view of cameras (which turned out to be so cheap and crappy they couldn’t show the guys’ faces).
I’m not aware of any use of cameras in non-public places, or anywhere that you could expect a decent level of privavy - and I strtongly suspect they’d be illegal to use (even shops with cameras are required to have a notice pointing this out).
As has been said, I get the impression that CCTV footage is not terrfically good. There is a camera at the back of my block (high-rise block in a pretty bad area), which I suppose is there to make people arriving in cars happy.
Hmm - now people with no cars, arriving at the front of the block…
I think the evildoers are somehow meant to see a camera and immediately run off. Not sure about that one, myself.
I’ll admit, though, that if waiting for a bus somewhere, I’d be a bit happier to think the place was under camera, albeit know ing that the most that can do, is persuade the evildoers to go a tiny distance away.
Whether the cameras are actually in operation, or monitored with any regularity is something I would like to know.
A local police force, a few yars, ago, was embarrasses wwhen it became public that most of their speed cameras were , well, pretty much just there for decoration.
That’s interesting. Call me a dolt, but I usually assumed that cameras are monitored closely by beady-eyed fanatics. You know, underpaid folks squarely in the palm of Big Brother.
Stupid, really, because dummy cameras sure aren’t unknown on this side of the pond either.
Maybe you guys have gotten a bad rap but I was under the impression your every move was filmed, monitored and saved for posterity.
I’m interested to know where you got this impression that Britons are monitored 24 hours a day by a sinister network of security cameras. You think there’s some kind of secret police spying on potential subversives or something? Rubbish. Those strange clicking noises on my phone are perfectly normal, the Ministry of Telephones said so.
Now, would I do that? 
Come to think of it, there must be slightly more entertaining and soothing things to take an interest in when stricken by a dreaded lergy, so maybe, just maybe… if cap fits…
Sorry, I’m really not up to speed on the whole thing, but I am sure I recall I security cameras in these parts being broken (probably by stones/whatever, thrown by the baddies, and not repaired for several months.
In the case of my area, the plan is, I think, to say - “look, this area is not really so fearsome as it widely thought - come and live here, and all will be joyful”.
Or something like that - dunno why the word joyful jumped out of the keyboard just then - I probably last saw it in a dictionary when looking for something else. (Probably looking for “Bah, Humbug”, in fact )
It would be interesting to know the differing proportion*s of these sort of cameras in the U.K. and in the U.S.A.
Hmm, there must have been studies to determine the usefulness or otherwise of these things, but off the top of my head, I don’t know any.
I do know, though, that today’s radio wittered on about an 8% rise in violent crime in the last year, and whether that is Scotland or only the Strathclyde region, I do not know, but it would sort of suggest that these things are there to give the public a “feel good” effect, rather than doing much about the criminals.
Of course we don’t have police with guns wandering around, so, jsut maybe there is a bit to be said for trying all minimising or deterring ideas.
*(That is a grammatical mess, but, sorry, early hours of the morning here.)
I can only speak about the Cameras in Department of Work and Pensions buildings, but CCTV images are of very high quality nowdays (brand new digital technology). Furthermore we store the images for sevral week on a computer directly linked to the nearest police station. As we ID just about everyone we see, we know exactly who you are and what your doing and we even keep a record of anyone we feel is potentially violent. Don’t commit crimes in DWP buildings; as well as pressing crimnal charges we can also ban people from all our offices leaving you unable to claim or receive benefits.
To read this post you require red clearance any citizen with infrared clearnce reading this post should report immediately to the nearest termination centre. The computer is your friend.
Stay happy!