CCTVs Don't Work in the UK 571
ShakaUVM writes "People who give up a little bit of liberty for a little bit of security deserve neither, the saying goes. But what happens when people give up so much liberty their entire country resembles an Orweillean dystopia — but the pervasive monitoring doesn't help to solve any crimes? That's what is happening in the United Kingdom today. While the Guardian tries to put a good spin on the entire fiasco, the fact remains that CCTVs only help with 3% of all street robberies, the very crimes they were supposed to be best at protecting.
Should England finally move to eliminate its troubling state surveillance program?"
Uninformed paranoia, for the most part (Score:5, Informative)
Of the remainder, the vast majority of them are traffic-cameras at junctions, in speed-cameras (yes, these count, for some reason), etc. What's left are the police-owned ones which watch people in high-crime areas or (usually in partnership with the businesses) high-people-traffic areas (eg: Regent St., Oxford St. in London).
I lived in London for ~15 years before moving to CA. I don't feel any less "observed" here than I did in London. I'm on-camera in CA if I get money from an ATM; if I drive across a junction (try looking up once in a while); if I get on the BART; if I get on Caltrain; if I go to a bank;
I really wish people would stop pandering to the tabloid press trying to sell copy. Sure, there are cameras. Everywhere(*). Deal.
Simon
(*)Well, every country I've been to, anyway.
When a little surveillance doesn't work... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Surveillance isn't really an impediment on free (Score:3, Informative)
Americans are really big on the right to privacy, so being recorded as soon as you step outside your house is a huge loss of freedom for us.
Europeans are more used to government control, with mandatory registration of your residence and mandatory IDs.
Re:Uninformed paranoia, for the most part (Score:5, Informative)
Yes folks, slashdot's latest evidence that the UK is a surveillance society is a report that states that no-one ever looks at the CCTV footage. But our summarisers have never let the facts get in the way of a good knee jerk.
Re:In a word, (Score:2, Informative)
Your tax money should not be spent tracking political opposition with cameras. You might not be someone like that but you benefit from their work in the same you benefit from newspapers but have no intention of exercising your free speech.
Re:Uninformed paranoia, for the most part (Score:5, Informative)
Don't forget that the oft-reported massive figure for the number of CCTV cameras in the UK is *completely made up*. It's a fake figure. It was concocted by looking at the number of CCTV cameras on a section of the main street of a particularly rough part of London which was deliberately chosen because of the high numbers of CCTV cameras covering things like pawn shops, bookies, off-licences and cheque-cashing shops. Then this already artificially high figure was scaled up by multiplying by the amount of road in the whole of the UK. So, the number would be accurate if *every inch* of the UK's roads was like the middle of a particularly shitey area of London.
It's not, though.
Did you know that in the US, because it's legal for people to walk around with guns, *every single American* is robbed at gunpoint *every day*? No, you didn't did you? But it's true! It said so on the Internet!
Re:I think... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I think... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:At the risk of being arrested... (Score:3, Informative)
What's the cameras use? (Score:5, Informative)
April 2008, the law in the UK was changed by the government which now allows any official spy camera to be used for "traffic enforcement" (more easy money).
Lo and behold one week into this new scheme, in my local area a woman was attacked and sexually assaulted at a bus stop while waiting for a bus. What happened we'll never 100% know, because the camera operator was more interested in catching motorists going in a wrong lane, then to record video of tha assault and catch the guy that did the assault (what the camera was installed for in the first place).
The whole camera installation nationwide is for state surveillance of you, and it feels really uncomfortable knowing you are being filmed walking or driving around, whilst criminals remain untouchable and don't give a damn about the cameras.
Resist the cameras in your country, or suffer the surveillance fate of the UK.
Re:Oh please (Score:3, Informative)
Exactly. In fact, omitting those words makes every one of us deserving of neither liberty nor security, as the very concept of a systems of laws is the sacrificing of liberty for security.
I give up my liberty to kill anyone who pisses me off in return for the security of knowing that I'm not likely to get killed by someone who I pissed off.
Pedant's Moaning (Score:2, Informative)
Firstly, England != the UK. The United Kingdom is made of Scotland, Northern Ireland, and England and Wales (the last two are separate countries, but they use the same laws).
Secondly, while I do think that the way CCTV has been deployed in the UK is nothing short of a sham, I believe they do actually work. The summary is misleading in that it conveniently omits any mention of the fact that CCTV footage is often useful for dealing with muggings, assaults, violent crime, and with numerous other crimes. The 3% figure is somewhat unrepresentative.
The fact also remains that if you're not doing anything illegal, you shouldn't have anything to worry about with reference to CCTV.
Re:At the risk of being arrested... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Uninformed paranoia, for the most part (Score:4, Informative)
Here's a link for you: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23412867-details/Tens+of+thousands+of+CCTV+cameras,+yet+80%25+of+crime+unsolved/article.do [thisislondon.co.uk]
Re:But they DO work in Philadelphia (Score:3, Informative)
There is a small town about 10 miles from where I live. This "town" is really just an intersection. It has one gas station/tackle shop with a subway inside. It has a tiny little police station. Besides that there are about 5 or 6 buildings which are normally vacant, but a business will spring up in one of them every now and then, fail within a year, and then the building is empty again (there was actually a decent restaurant that opened in one of them a while back - they lasted about 6 months before closing). They also have a little "convention hall" behind the aforementioned gas station where they hold an annual festival and beauty pageant. Aside from that one weekend per year, this is empty too.
Besides that beyond this intersection in any direction is just forest for at least 5 miles. This "town"'s police force normally consists of 2 to 3 officers. They essentially run that place off a combination of state funding, and speeding fines for people passing through (afterall the road is straight and open forest until bam, you're in a "town" that ends again in less than a half mile).
In high school I actually got a ticket there for going 48mph in a 45mph zone. I shit ye not. It become common knowledge that instead of the standard "5 over", when driving there you adopt a "5 under" approach.
Re:Heathrow (Score:3, Informative)
Out towards the piers they do care, in particular because they have no real separation of the streams of passengers arriving and departing, and they clearly do not trust that arriving passengers have been properly checked on departured. I was once forced to go out through security and back in again because I went out to the pier too early, was told to go back and took a wrong turn that brought me about 20 meters down a corridor where I had supposedly had a chance to mingle with "dirty passengers" (never mind I could've done that on the pier itself) before realizing my mistake and going back out to find the right corridor...
Yeah, they are clueless.
Re:cctv and liberty (Score:2, Informative)
Re:In a word, (Score:4, Informative)
If you plan to publish for profit or just for public display and are not a news outlet, getting releases is crucial. Using someone's image without permission is a sure-fire way to having a lawsuit handed to you.
I work in the film industry and if we're filming on a location where we can't 100% control the foot traffic, we have PA's running all over the place getting releases signed.
If you are doing documentary video work, simply getting the subject to say their name and that it is alright to use their interview on tape suffices for a release.
Getting distribution REQUIRES that you have signed releases for every single cast, crew and extra as well as for locations and for music. On top of this they will require O&E insurance (Errors and omissions) in case you got a Pepsi bottle in a shot or something like that.
The amount of paperwork involved in getting something commercially distributed is incredible and for most indie filmmakers, it is also the reason they don't get their films released... they don't do their paperwork.
When I shoot music video in a club, I have to plaster the whole venue with legal verbiage just so that people know that by entering the venue they are agreeing to have their likeness video taped.
Yes, this is all a total hassle, but it's also about covering your own ass against lawsuits. Neglect your paperwork at your own risk.
IANAL but I have worked with many entertainment attorneys who will reiterate everything I just said.
Re:What's the cameras use? (Score:2, Informative)
When I'm not working, as a member of the public I really do detest CCTV as well. But I do take minor comfort in the fact that all recordings are only kept for 31 days (certainly in my force, your millage may vary) and are then only looked at if something is discovered to have happened in retrospect. "Realtime" recordings tend to only be of specific incidents in a reactive style, all the rest are time elapsed recordings (1 frame a second I believe).
Duh (Score:1, Informative)
Kinda like the one on the Australian Gun Ban that shows ten years out that violent crime comitted with firearms has INCREASED 300% since the ban.
Laws like this do absolutely nothing to protect you from criminals, and as I've always suspected (and time has proven), have the exact opposite effect.
Unfortunately the solution is really simple: issue concealed carry permits to anyone that can pass a background check, and just have stiff penalties for misuse of them.
This would work much better.