Spy Review

It seems having CCTV cameras popping up on every street corner is not enough, now councils are being granted permission to spy on people at the individual level. They are being given permission, upon approval, to spy on residents who they believe are causing them problems.

The local authorities involved are taking advantage of legislation that allows, at least in some cases, for individuals and households to be monitored over what seems pretty trivial issues such as whether dog owners are picking up waste. They are using a variety of techniques such as spy cameras and binoculars, depending on the situation.

While permission to carry out surveillance by police has decreased in the last year, the number of requests by local authorities have gone up. Are we seeing a shift whereby local authorities being granted powers that one might expect only police to have?

Should local authorities be given these powers? There is no doubt this is a violation of peoples privacy, but their argument is that its in the best interest of the people in the community as a whole as these types of surveillance will help to deal with problematic tenants. Understandably, this is causing consternation among groups that advocate privacy rights.

Personally, I feel no group other than law enforcement agencies (or only in very special cases, groups affiliated to law enforcement) should be accorded such powers. If you are going to give out power of surveillance willy-nilly it could set a dangerous precedence where people will almost feel as if their lives are increasingly encroached upon.

We already live in an environment where the amount of surveillance has gone up markedly, so any further interrogation into peoples lives will no doubt cause resentment, especially where the matters are quite trivial. It will only lead to mistrust between the people and the public bodies. More information can be found in this article from the Daily Telegraph.