Why would anyone object to CCTV monitoring?

Question

The government is considering plans to allow police permanent access to data from traffic cameras to track the movement of cars. The "Big Brother" plans emerged after Home Office Minister Tony McNulty announced that real-time data from London's 1,500 congestion charge cameras would be given to Scotland Yard under a temporary lifting of data protection rules. Under current arrangements, the Metropolitan Police have to ask for data from the number-plate reading cameras on a case-by-case basis.

Background notes inadvertently attached to McNulty's statement on Tuesday revealed Home Office plans to make the exemption from data protection plans permanent and to extend it across the country.


I HOPE THEY GET IT THROUGH - I am very happy to be monitored all day every day in order to help deter and catch criminals. I back use of CCTV all the way. The idiots who campaign against it are living in another century

NO I AM NOT VICTORIA BECKHAM - I DONT WANT TO BE FILMED BUT I PREFER THAT TO NOT CATCHING THE CRIMINALS, ETC, THAT ARE PREVENTED AND CAUGHT BY THESE METHODS!!!!

Crisisatw - I think your imagination is running away with you a bit. Conceding to having a good system which monitors people's movements does not have to be the start of what you suggest - all that is is your FEAR of what could happen.

Answer 1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed-circuit_television#Privacy Even Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, warns that Britain is "sleepwalking into a surveillance society".
http://www.no2id.net/
http://www.socialscrutiny.org/weblog.php?id=P231 funny

The money would be better spent on more police officers on the beat. If CCTV is so effective, and here in the UK we have more CCTV per head of population than anywhere else in the world, how come we also have one of the highest rates of crime?

Answer 2

I'm not worried about them at the moment but I see the implications of putting them up everywhere. The thing is that you think of the law as it exists now and not about how it will be in the future. If you take the new smoking ban as an example. Initially people were allowed to smoke and were law abiding citizens. Now if they smoke somewhere where it is banned they will be fined. This changes the boundaries of what the government expect of you and makes life very difficult. Giving the police the right to watch us 24 hours a day is basically giving them full control of everything. And in the future you may not feel the same way about the law. Read 1984 and you may start understanding my point.....Or if you aren't much of a reader watch demolition man as it makes a similar point. There isn't good and bad or right and wrong in life and the more people try to categorise it the less we will actually be able to live. I see the future with people living to 150 yet never actually enjoying the time they have lived.

Answer 3

I don't know how old you are but I know you're young enough to be manipulated by the media and the government.(no insult intended) CCTV will very rarely capture real hard criminals, they generally captivate monies from already hard pressed tax payers, who more often than not just commit non serious misdemeanour's, that on the whole do not generate a custodial sentence but a fine. That is what this really is all about, and even though we are already the most spy-ed upon nation it has done nothing to drop the level of crime, also for your information, because we are so spy-ed upon, and you will find this out sooner than later I hope. All the information held on you already was only in order to help fight crime but insurance companies are now privileged to this information, and believe me they will use it against you and your family, they will deny you certain policy's or demand that you pay a higher premium because your great great great grandfather died of a heart attack, and believe me this has happen to me! You can forget about having critical illness cover cos unless you are a millionaire you wont get it! And where does that leave you and your family? Afraid to ever become ill, that's where. So yes there are allot of implications, far more than you may have thought about, so this was a good subject to bring up for some debate, thanks.

Answer 4

These cameras can only tell that a vehicle has gone into the congestion charging area, so the question has to be, why do they want the information?
As for CCTV being a deterrent, in my opinion, that's ridiculous, everyone knows that nearly all city centres are covered by CCTV, people still fight, robberies and muggings still happen, they might get caught, but it doesn't deter.

Answer 5

I have no objection to CCTV as long as it is only accessed by Police Forces and/ or the security services to prevent or solve crimes. I wouldn't even mind if the government used the information of vehicle movements to improve traffic conditions.

Edit - Chris above, I make my point as this information getting into the wrong hands could be a disaster. I agree with you about advertising companies etc would hound people if they purchased access to this info.

Also, what if this footage was then accessed by criminals. They could watch the movements of a potential target without getting themselves on cctv.

Answer 6

In the U.S. a certain Constitutional right to privacy has been conferred by case law. The 4th Amendment has been interpreted to mean a person, minding their own business, has a right not to be watches, listened to or otherwise searched by the state. People have the right to go about their day in relative privacy and anonymity when it comes to the government.


Private property, of course, is a different matter. For the police to be watching individuals all day, from he moment they leave their home until they return give the state the ability to not only invade privacy, but a terrible amount of freedom to pick on certain citizens arbitrarily. It's a very dangerous slippery slope.

Not 25 years ago Reagan and Thatcher condemned the Soviet Union for monitoring its citizens. My how things have changed.

Answer 7

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Totalitarian regimes rely on surveillance to keep their subjects in line. The problem is that what counts as a crime is defined by those with power. For example, you can't demonstrate normally near Westminster, why not? - because the MPs didn't like the sound of the anti-war protester outside. In the old soviet regimes belonging to certain political parties was a criminal offence. Going back to the miners strike - people were stopped on motorways and turned back from striking and objecting.

Read some decent literature on this, such as Orwell's "1984", or Solzhenitsyn's "One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich", or "First circle". They highlight what happens when power goes to the heads of those in power - absolute power corrupts absolutely. These books highlight the consequences of untrammeled surveillance.

Evidence for corruption is seen in the one-sided way some politicians want to distort the freedom of information act to exclude their expenses.

Surveillance doesn't prevent crime - it only observes. If we want to prevent crime then we need to make criminals believe that they will get caught - CCTV only goes part of the way.

I'm not saying that CCTV is entirely useless. However, it is only part of the solution to crime detection. Appropriate checks and balances are required, and these need to be transparent. CCTV also needs to be supported by a real police presence. Peter Sutcliffe wasn't caught by cameras, he was caught by police out on the street doing a good job.

Those who are wholly in favour of CCTV are ignorant of other centuries, and of human nature.

Answer 8

It's a shame you had to put the last sentence in, up to there it was a looking like a good question. You have to stop classifying everyone whose opinion is the opposite of yours as 'idiots', and instead look at their arguments. I am totally against constant CCTV monitoring, ID cards and all other "Big Brother" type activities, and I assure you I am no idiot. I understand and agree that it would help lower crime levels etc. and in theory it is a good idea. But then, IN THEORY, communism is a good idea. The problem lies with putting it into practice and keeping it working in the way that it should. This won't happen, simply because that kind of system can and will be used by unscrupulous people and companies to gather information on YOU for them to use for their own selfish purposes. Data protection laws will slowly become obsolete, and you will be monitored by not just the authorities but, for example, advertising agencies who will buy and use that information to ascertain what products you might be interested in and then bombard you with adverts for them. You think you get a lot of junk mail and cold calls now? Just wait a few years.
And with the case of ID cards, eventually they will contain easily accessible information on everything about you. Imagine being refused a job because of no other reason than your genetics suggest that you have a higher than average chance of contracting a serious medical condition; cancer for example. Or the impact such a thing might have on insurance, or borrowing.
The CCTV issue you speak of is a very real first step toward a true '1984'/'Brave New World' society where the public has no choice but to do what it is told and where independent thought and free speech, such that it is, no longer exists. You may think this all seems very far-fetched, but I assure you it is not, and neither is it that far away, so might I suggest that you do some serious research into it before dismissing it. Maybe start by looking at it from every point of view that isn't yours.

Edit- I agree when you say that it does not necessarily have to lead to what I suggest. I do not claim that what I said WILL happen, just that in my opinion there is a very real chance that it COULD happen. I very much wish it were my imagination running away with me, as you suggest, but I am experienced enough in life to be able to control my imagination and prevent such an occurence. I make my comments based on my own observations of society and unfortunately these have led me to conclude that those with power ie politicians, company executives etc. are somewhat lacking in moral fibre, particularly when money is offered in replacement, and it is this one fact that leads me to believe that these systems we are discussing have a low chance of being used solely for the purposes they are intended. They will be a prime target for the corrupt and as such will in turn be corrupted. I certainly do not fear it happening, as to fear an uncertain future is pointless, I merely recognise it in order to be prepared in case it does happen.

Answer 9

I think its a good idea, the more CCTV the better as far as I am concerned. I would certainly feel safer walking the streets at night if I knew that CCTV was in operation.
I have no idea why anyone would feel differently, its not as if they want to film you in your own home and as long as you are not breaking the law then you have nothing to worry about.

Answer 10

I don't have a problem with being monitored. It shows how uneducated I am I thought the police already had access to all CCTV cameras as a norm. We have got to find out everything we can about the people who want to cause damage to the country and its inhabitants, so anything that helps the police in this, good one.