Talking CCTV to Scold Offenders in UK 486
linumax writes "The most monitored nation of the world is getting an interesting new service. According to a BBC News story, "Talking" CCTV cameras that tell off people dropping litter or committing anti-social behaviour are to be extended to 20 areas across England.They are already used in Middlesbrough where people seen misbehaving can be told to stop via a loudspeaker, controlled by control centre staff."
more like a call to arms (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ready for the Daily Jerks? (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone with any sense got out ages ago.
How about this one (Score:3, Interesting)
5. Pedestrian stops complaining about how filthy the beach is and why doesn't the goverment do anything about it.
Your argument sounds a lot like dog owners who complained about fines for letting their dogs crap on the sidewalk BUT also complained about crap on the sidewalk.
Is it really that hard to make sure your dog does NOT take a dump were everyone, including yourselve is walking? Is it that hard to drop your litter in a can?
You see, the problem for me, a middle aged white male, is that I see two choices. Talking camera's and security patrols (wich do not affect me) OR walking through areas littered with crap (affect the people who think the street is a garbage dump). Hmmm, what a choice to make eh. My convenience for your freedom to inconvenience me, yourselve and everyone else.
Sorry, you need to come up with a better example then the state repressing your freedom to litter.
Re:What a lot of Americans don't realize.. (Score:5, Interesting)
What's more strange, I found, was that I never got into a fight in all my adult life until I went to the UK. There I got into a bunch of them. One caused by annoying people who wouldn't turn down their music while I was trying to sleep. (I politely asked them to turn down their music, one of them hit me). One caused by men at McDonalds rudely describing a female patron. (I politely asked them to watch their language, one of them hit me). One which I started after listening to a white guy call a guy I knew "niger" a bunch of times. My friend didn't want to get in trouble with the nearby security people.. but where I come from, that kind of talk earns you a broken nose.
Of course, a bunch of you reading this probably think this is terribly uncouth and that I am clearly an anti-social person. Call me Quentin Tarantino if you like, but I think there's a place for violence in our society.. it's a regulating force which every person has the power to exercise. Just look at how impolite some forums without violence can be.
Re:What a lot of Americans don't realize.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ready for the Daily Jerks? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's one thing to use "hey, it's in public" as an excuse for a lot of things, but it's another thing entirely to use it to justify eavesdropping from a remote location, videotaping people and even remotely telling them how to behave and not to be anti-social.
You might as well justify people getting upskirt material in public. What's the difference? How is it different if you use high tech equipment to listen in on people from eighty feet away and recording everything they do in public versus some crazy perv with mirrors on his shoes and a small video camera?
Why not stick video camers and audio capturing devices and loudspeakers on every lightpole and aim them directly into everyone's homes. After all, the cameras are in public places and if Joe Public could potentially see and listen to something from the road, what's the big deal about a video camera with 14x optical zoom and high quality devices that pick up audio from far away doing the same thing?
I for one love the idea of being monitored, watched and told how to behave by some minimum wage monkey in a remote location every second I am outside of my home. Yay!
Adording Parents: Everything is their fault (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately it dribbled out of the Slashhot Firehose.
Fortunately you can still read about it elsewhere:
http://www.pbs.org/teachers/learning.now/2007/03/
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-esteem27f
http://www.statenews.com/op_article.phtml?pk=4005
Re:What a lot of Americans don't realize.. (Score:2, Interesting)
That is, assuming you are a man. If not, just consider that a compliment.
BBC Radio 4. PM Programme Weds, 04/04 (Score:1, Interesting)
When the woman mentioned that litter costs the UK £0.5BN a year Mair stated that obesity cost the NHS over £1BN each year and perhaps the CCTV and loudspeakers should be used to stop fat people from eating crisps. A comment was declined.
Re:What a lot of Americans don't realize.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Middlesborough? They have these in Cheshire! (Score:3, Interesting)
The only one I've seen so far (at least, the only place I've seen it 'triggered') is in the outdoor centre bit of our local shopping center, where there is a pub and some construction work going on. A few friends and I came out of the pub a bit drunk and saw some "wet floor" type cones lying around... anyway, so yeah, we're messing with these cones in a non-destructive way (just putting them on our heads - hey, look, we were drunk, stfu) and then this booming yet completely intelligible voice starts talking to us telling us to put the cones down!
Over Christmas they had a fake ice rink there and they kept telling people to get off it at night.
We're not sure where the speaker itself is, but pretty much every place in town is covered by cameras. I'm pretty sure that's not the only place they cover with these things. Having read 1984, it's extremely disturbing.
Re:Because they're getting desperate? (Score:5, Interesting)
So, after installing all those cameras, there is an epidemic of exactly the sort of crime that they are supposed to prevent? And the solution is to install more, and more expensive, cameras? It's working well, isn't it?
It certainly matters whether the epidemic is perceived or actual: no amount of law enforcement is going to reduce crime if the crime is not "actual", but just in the minds of the right-wing press.
There's a beam in your eye. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Where did the UK go wrong??? (Score:4, Interesting)
Nobody that I've talked to on this issue has been able to answer this question yet, so I'll ask it plain and simple: How is monitoring of public places an invasion of privacy?
I am in the UK, and sometimes its a v. good thing. (Score:2, Interesting)
What you dont see in these sensationalist posts are some of the good things that have come out of these systems.
For example:-
There was a case about a year ago when a man attempted to abduct a girl and the CCTV systems cought it, summoned the police and then guided the police to where he had run off.
There have been murders solved by the ubiquitous CCTVs, simply wind the tapes back, study. We are not talking the odd anecdotal story here CCTV is a very major crime prevention and solution tool.
Talking cameras is already proven to but down on crime before it happens and free the hard working police force to concentrate more on where they are really needed. Besides they are only in public areas anyhow where anybody is free to watch in any case.
It disturbs me when people hark on about their privacy and how unfair it is to be snooped on constantly - the system is reducing crime and making the streets safer.
On the same vein we know have computerised vehicle licensing, insurance and MOT (road worthyness test) system - so the police can check your cars details in a fraction of a second - if it cuts down on car theft, joy runners and illegal uninusred vehicles then I cam all for it.
The UK has a very fast growing DNA database, its added to constantly by the police among others. So far it has solved numerous crimes, even when a perfect match is not found a close enough family match is generally found to help track down the perpatrator. Every few weeks there is a story about some decades old crime solved by modern techniques and the database.
ID cards will inevitably come into force in the near future - well if that cuts down on benefit fraud, illegal immigrants and helps catch wanted criminals then I am all for it.
My point is that people will get up on their soapbox and rant about the state of the nation, how crime is prevelant and people should do something about it, then refuse to allow technologies that are doing something effective about it.
I'm all for it, I have nothing to hide.
That's nonsense (Score:3, Interesting)
Yet both those nations are not so nannied and camera infested as the UK - explain?
the only difference I can see straight away is that the police in those places is (a) very available and (b) doesn't take any BS. Oh, and public transport actually works there, but I digress.
Interesting observation that affecting a "right" to drink alcohol would provoke action. That's a fascinating take on human rights
Re:I am in the UK, and sometimes its a v. good thi (Score:2, Interesting)
I have never heard a single anecdote about a crime in Brighton being solved or prevented by our extensive on-street/beach CCTV cameras.
Linky:
BBC: "CCTV systems 'fail to cut crime'" [bbc.co.uk]
BBC: "CCTV 'not a crime deterrent'" [bbc.co.uk]
Big Brother? Oh please... (Score:2, Interesting)
Really this is getting irritating now. I'm fed up with posts like "where did the UK go so wrong" and "omfg1984wtfroflcopter".
I live in the UK, very near to Middlesborough where the idea was piloted and I've seen (or rather heard) the things in action. I would argue with a lot of your beliefs that it is turning the UK into a place where privacy is not respected or that we are constantly monitored by the state as we are not. Never when I walk down the street do I feel as if I am constantly being watched even though there may well be a few CCTV cameras in most town centres.
CCTV monitors public places, if you are in a public place, almost by definition you have accepted the fact that someone is going to see you (whether it would be a person or a camera) and I'm not going to argue with that, having a camera there is nothing more than having a policeman stood there (with an exeptional memory, granted but still effectively the same) and everyone these days seems to want more "bobbies on the beat".
Now with speakers being connected to the cameras, everyone seems to be in uproar, yet again about privacy. But in reality I can not understand why. They still monitor public places, they dont follow you into your bathroom, they are the same cameras, connected to the same screens where the same policeman or woman sits and watches for signs of crime or antisocial behaviour (something that everyone would like less of) only now that policeman or woman can let an offender know what they are doing wrong and that they have been seen doing it... exactly the same thing a policeman would do if he was stood in the town center and witnessed it in person.
I guess what i'm trying to say is that just because it is a camera and not a policeman doesn't mean it encroaches on anyones rights any more than before it is simply technology allowing our policeforce to be more effective. Effective in a one policeman can cover more square-footage point of view and from the evidence gathering side of things.
Personally, I am against these cameras going country-wide for the sole reason that will cost the taxpayer a lot of money and that they do not fit well into every situation -in some cases nothing short of more cops will do. But for giving streched police forces a more efficient monitoring method -I'm all for it in selective cases.
Re:Ready for the Daily Jerks? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ready for the Daily Jerks? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ready for the Daily Jerks? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Where did the UK go wrong??? (Score:3, Interesting)
You may be able to coerce that consent in a country with little democratic heritage or influence, but it simply isn't going to happen to any stable democracy unless the majority wants it at the time.
The only way I can see this happening in Britain, or any other western European country, is in response to a massive crisis - ie where the majority (temporally at least) want the dictator. This is certainly possible (although I hope unlikely), but it wouldn't be a case of creep, rather thunderous applause.