UK CCTV
 

Pretty impressive system of cameras, especially in London. What do Brits think of this? Never saw a newscast that didn't have a report relating to it.

Some people are concerned that CCTV is so widespread and that legal safeguards may not always be properly observed, but I think most people don't give it a moment's thought. And there are cases where it was instrumental in identifying criminals - and more debatably deterred people who might have been thinking of taking their chacnes.

Anathema to Americans - even the mention in my smallish town sends folks into conniptions - will be interesting to hear Brits rationalize their seemingly acquiesence with allowing Big Brother into their daily lives - typically folks it seems are on cameras hundreds of times during each day - with facial recognition software being feasible one could track movements of folks all day - good in some cases but government gone wild perhaps in others. Supposed Rupert Murdoch and his ilk would love to do it.

Do CCTV decrease crime and I have seen statistic that they do not, except the proverbial dogs fouling the walkways or parks.

more debatably deterred people>

but only overall crime rates can say if CCTV deters crime in general or do would-be criminals just take their criminal activity to places without CCTV?

Compare the rate of CCTV'd cities to those with fewer perhaps?

I don't like them, and I have major worries about abuse (using them to spy on on people suspected of not living in a school catchment area etc). I don't think it acts as a deterrent, not reduces crime (see the recent riots) but I strongly suspect that y views are in the minority and that people feel safer because of them.

Doesn't bother me at all, if they want to whatch me picking my nose, then that's fine by me.

willit -- that's an interesting example. Can I ask if you don't care about parents lying about school catchments or do you just not want CCTV used to catch them?

I agree with Hooamye, they're there nothing could have prevented the recent riots, well not strictly true, but the cameras did help in identifying some of the rioters. Day to day they do I think aid in crime prevention.

I like them, guess there are some significant cultural differences between US and UK generally (I repeat generally).

When we hear about a mad gun man in either country the Brits will think "more anti-gun laws" while the US will think "we need more guns".

At the moment Brits cameras "good" while US think camaras "bad"

Now what about drug legalisation?

>>Now what about drug legalisation?<<

What about it? I don't think it would be a panacea, since criminals don't let go of captive markets that easily. And it would still be necessary to regulate any sort of market in some way: it would be very much harder in the US because treating this as a medical problem means trying to find a medical market for it, which seems highly improbable: who's going to take out insurance against the possibility of becoming a drug addict, or who would give insurance to someone who already is?

BKP - I work in the health service and have some duties regarding data laws. There is a large swathe of the Data Protection act that can be summarised as "Data should only be used for the purpose for which they were collected".

So gathering CCTV footage from Cameras put there to deter crime to mount surveillance on somebodies home for purposes of seeing if they genuinely live in the area, to me, would be abuse of the system. Similarly convictions for dogs foulling the path, minor littering that have used CCTV , I feel have moved beyond a legitimate form of surveillance.

I'm not keen either; but it's far worse in England than in Scotland

<<Data should only be used for the purpose for which they were collected.>>

I agree with that. But if CCTV cameras are installed to prevent crime, and lying about your address or letting your dog foul the pavement are crimes, then why can't CCTV be used to catch these people?

Of course there are civil liberty concerns. right now I think they are ok because I don't think I live under Big Brother who is interested in everything we all do. No-one is sitting there constantly scanning them (except for a few city centre locations) and they have been extremely useful in investigating crimes, especially incidents of missing persons. They are only used to investigate fairly serious crimes, no one is looking at who's dog is pooping on the pavement and frankly we simply don't have the money to pay for staffing at that level even if we wanted to!

It did help me out as a deterrent when I was accosted by a drunken teenager at 8am on my way to work and it did look like it might turn violent. Her friend dragged her away with: 'not here, there's CCTV!'.

Willit and BKP: trying to circumvent the school admission rules isn't a crime, it's at worst an administrative "offence" like parking in the wrong place - but the DPA is a pretty baggy piece of legislation: you define your purposes as widely as possible (hard to see how you could do otherwise with CCTV), and if memory serves there are fairly general categories of function you can register, to do with administration of services (for which obviously one needs to maintain personal records), such as school admissions.

The really worrying thing has been when individuals have been posting clips on Youtube and the like for general amusement, which must be illegal (weren't there prosecutions for doing that?).

Well the UK should be practically crime-free it seems if CCTV do their job.

How much are the crime rates lower in Britain than say some similar society like Ireland or France or Germany?

I'd wager rates are very similar regardless of the number of CCTVs - the real point is are they effective and no one has offered any evidence yet that they are.

Or if there were no CCTVs would Britain be like Madrid or Barcelona?

From memory, the point about the school admissions case was that the woman won it. Somebody somewhere suspected she was cheating the system, but she wasn't - but was spied on for several months.

It doesn't bother me but then I have nothing to hide ;-) I used to work in the City around the time of the IRA bombings in the early 90's so the more eyes watching the streets the better as far as I was concerned back then.

If you dislike the general surveillance system imposed around the city, you always have the option of electing someone in your favor to the House of Lords.

Bad joke and I'm not laughing.

Interestingly, there are very few legal cases involving improper use of the CCTV images. of course that doesn't mean that it isn't happening, but tends to suggest that it is not widespread.

most people don't even think about it- hence the failure of the rioters to realise that they would be nicked quite quickly.