Spy Review

If you are a resident of Britain – beware! Big Brother may be watching you. There are more than 60,000 cameras deployed, operated by local councils. Director of privacy campaign group, Alex Deane, confirmed that a study aptly titled Big Brother is Watching revealed, ‘Local councils across Britain are creating enormous networks of CCTV at great expense, but the evidence for the ability of CCTV to deter or solve crimes is sketchy at best.’

The sad part is that though the councils have spent a great deal of money in installing the cameras, they often don’t work properly, the footage is not clear and cannot be used for legal purposes, sometimes the cameras are turned off and sometimes nobody is manning the control rooms.

Even worse only one crime is solved per 1,000 cameras installed. One senior Met officer, Mick Neville, described London’s CCTV network as an ‘utter fiasco’.

People are also concerned that their privacy is being violated thanks to their everyday, normal activities in public places being filmed without their knowledge and that their images are on record. More on this

In an ideal world there would be much fewer cameras but with extremely high quality output on the ones that are deployed and which should be placed strategically. The technology is not very advanced when it comes to clarity making some of the footage redundant. But given the rise in terrorism scares, it would be counter-productive to cut the number of cameras because of the need for extra vigilance everywhere. Either way, what is definitely required is that all the footage filmed can actually be used when required or else it would seem a waste of resources.