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Yeah, it also conflates private/publicly owned cameras. As someone who lives in London, I think we get unfairly portrayed as a surveillance state, because reall
by sweezyjeezy 7y ago
Yeah, it also conflates private/publicly owned cameras. As someone who lives in London, I think we get unfairly portrayed as a surveillance state, because really the vast majority of cameras are inside shops and businesses, not on the street, and not connected to any central databank. I personally don't find cameras like these troubling. Once you get out of central London, most streets don't have cameras on them.
- dymk 7y agoAnd besides, you'd need a public walkway license to look at the walkway, and then a camera license to use the camera, and then a license license to display the license... (I'm joking, but the covert surveillance and public scaremongering that London did to enforce TV licenses was a little absurd.)
- Semaphor 7y ago> I personally don't find cameras like these troubling. It’s interesting to hear this difference. Here in Germany there are often cases where the courts forbid fake cameras because they "create an atmosphere of surveillance".
- filoleg 7y agoBerlin has made that list too, though.
- Semaphor 7y agoIt’s not as if cameras are illegal here. You just need to have good reasons for them and have a very narrow area it surveils. For example many of those fake cams getting forbidden were from landlords and residents sued. Now if there were good reason like many break-ins in the area, the same landlord would have been allowed to have a real camera there.
- Tomte 7y agoThe one time I was in London fifteen years ago, it felt like 1984. I was sitting in a bus and there were at least five or six TVs showing several camera perspectives. Including one directly at the back of my head, which showed some early signs of balding. It was the most unpleasant bus ride I have ever had. London is nuts.
- cameronh90 7y agoFive or six TVs on a bus? I live here and I've never seen that. What some busses do have is a single TV screen that shows multiple feeds - either at once or flipping between them. I've never been particularly sure of the purpose or the screen (dissuading violence?), but it is useful for seeing if there are any seats upstairs.
- kalleboo 7y agoIt's the posters that creep me out http://www.adsavvy.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/watchful_eyes.jpg http://www.adsavvy.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/watchful_e... http://www.adsavvy.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/creepcamz.jpg http://www.adsavvy.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/creepcamz....
- Bartweiss 7y agoThis is a tricky problem, but I don't think limiting the numbers to public cameras would work. I'm not sure any numerical approach would. In Atlanta, for instance, the cameras surveilled by the police are 90% privately owned. And this isn't just "with a warrant" or "when a shopkeeper reports a crime and provides tapes", but nonstop, integrated access to their feeds. Conversely, a lot of the cameras in London may be private, unconnected, and indoors, which I agree is much less worrying. But the Ring of Steel does far more surveillance per-camera-per-capita than any shop camera, since it has unified design meant to maximize how many people are identifiably captured on camera.
- anigbrowl 7y agoCentral London was a surveillance state more than 20 years ago.
- spodek 7y agoSince 1984, one might say.