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Fun fact: London has ~700k cameras and is top 3 in the world by cameras per capita, top 20 being almost exclusively Chinese cities https://www.comparitech.com/

Fun fact: London has ~700k cameras and is top 3 in the world by cameras per capita, top 20 being almost exclusively Chinese cities https://www.comparitech.com/vpn-privacy/the-worlds-most-surveilled-cities/ https://www.comparitech.com/vpn-privacy/the-worlds-most-surv...

edoceo 5y ago
Just Fact, not Fun
melomal 5y ago
Exactly, literally every time I see these articles I just think of the UK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_the_Unite... I remember being questioned on terrorism charges outside St. Pauls Cathedral, alongside my friends by about 20 police with 4 vans. They told us that we need to leave London (lived outside of it) and they will watch us to ensure that we leave, if we do not then there will be further problems for us.
- neilsense 5y ago
  What did you do to elicit that response?
- theelous3 5y ago
  1. How can you say this without giving more context? 2. Presuming you aren't a terrorist or doing something so almost terroristish you were violating a public order statute - why wouldn't you just refuse?
  - redis_mlc 5y ago
    If you live in the US, then the UK will seem strange to you: - UK has pre-crime policing - anybody can file a hate charge, etc. based on socials - self-identifying trans people (a man claiming to be a woman) are sent to women's prisons automatically. You can guess what happens then - Disneyland for male predators. (This is starting to happen in the US.)
  - melomal 5y ago
    Terrorist Police in London just hit a little different. Machine guns, 5 police to 1 person, all separated apart. Refusing to do so was just not worth the back and forth, generally speaking we would have given them a hard time. But essentially we were out for a road trip and a friend of mine happens to be a videographer. We were around St. Paul's later at night with 2 cars a few guys and a couple of ladies. My friend was filming the Cathedral and a patrol drove passed and turnaround. They asked to see what was on video, they saw it, a couple of friends turned into deer in headlights with their responses and that's when they called backup. I tried to keep the producer which they gave me with all the details etc but haven't been able to find it. Odd experience. I couldn't be any lesson 'terrorist' looking if I tried.
IndySun 5y ago
>London has ~700k cameras A fact that often scurries across my mind when I read about some crime caught in 4k (especially home security cams) for which the police are unable to find the culprits. Are all those cameras actually on?
- djbebs 5y ago
  They are but if they use them all the time people won't be able to put them out of their mind and ignore them. So they only use them when it's politically convenient
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  You think all these cameras would have a positive effect on the crime index. London is just average compared to other European cities, so you might just want to skip spending billions on surveillance in the first place. https://www.numbeo.com/crime/region_rankings_current.jsp?region=150 https://www.numbeo.com/crime/region_rankings_current.jsp?reg...
  - Cycl0ps 5y ago
    >Is this much less accurate than governmental statistics? In some countries, governments have a detailed statistics based on a number of reported crimes per capita. Those surveys are particular good in comparing crime between two cities in that country, but are not so good in cross country comparison for the following reasons: By its own admission this isn't a good metric
    - raxxorrax 5y ago
      True, it depends on individual methods for data collection. Still, there should be some evidence for the effectiveness of video surveillance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_London doesn't really reflect a significant influence. It is falling slightly, just analogous to almost any other European city or capital.
- spzb 5y ago
WickyNilliams 5y ago
It's worth noting the majority of cctv cameras in the UK are privately owned, watching over private property, not owned by the state. So you can assume a) they're not actively monitored b) recordings are stored only for short periods of time (and retained only in event of a crime) Don't get me wrong, UK has a strange fixation with CCTV. But I wonder how these figures would look if you excluded privately owned cameras Edit: more information here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_the_Uni...

edoceo 5y ago

Just Fact, not Fun

melomal 5y ago

Exactly, literally every time I see these articles I just think of the UK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_the_Unite... I remember being questioned on terrorism charges outside St. Pauls Cathedral, alongside my friends by about 20 police with 4 vans. They told us that we need to leave London (lived outside of it) and they will watch us to ensure that we leave, if we do not then there will be further problems for us.

neilsense 5y ago
What did you do to elicit that response?
theelous3 5y ago
1. How can you say this without giving more context? 2. Presuming you aren't a terrorist or doing something so almost terroristish you were violating a public order statute - why wouldn't you just refuse?
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  If you live in the US, then the UK will seem strange to you: - UK has pre-crime policing - anybody can file a hate charge, etc. based on socials - self-identifying trans people (a man claiming to be a woman) are sent to women's prisons automatically. You can guess what happens then - Disneyland for male predators. (This is starting to happen in the US.)
- melomal 5y ago
  Terrorist Police in London just hit a little different. Machine guns, 5 police to 1 person, all separated apart. Refusing to do so was just not worth the back and forth, generally speaking we would have given them a hard time. But essentially we were out for a road trip and a friend of mine happens to be a videographer. We were around St. Paul's later at night with 2 cars a few guys and a couple of ladies. My friend was filming the Cathedral and a patrol drove passed and turnaround. They asked to see what was on video, they saw it, a couple of friends turned into deer in headlights with their responses and that's when they called backup. I tried to keep the producer which they gave me with all the details etc but haven't been able to find it. Odd experience. I couldn't be any lesson 'terrorist' looking if I tried.

IndySun 5y ago

>London has ~700k cameras A fact that often scurries across my mind when I read about some crime caught in 4k (especially home security cams) for which the police are unable to find the culprits. Are all those cameras actually on?

djbebs 5y ago
They are but if they use them all the time people won't be able to put them out of their mind and ignore them. So they only use them when it's politically convenient
raxxorrax 5y ago
You think all these cameras would have a positive effect on the crime index. London is just average compared to other European cities, so you might just want to skip spending billions on surveillance in the first place. https://www.numbeo.com/crime/region_rankings_current.jsp?region=150 https://www.numbeo.com/crime/region_rankings_current.jsp?reg...
- Cycl0ps 5y ago
  >Is this much less accurate than governmental statistics? In some countries, governments have a detailed statistics based on a number of reported crimes per capita. Those surveys are particular good in comparing crime between two cities in that country, but are not so good in cross country comparison for the following reasons: By its own admission this isn't a good metric
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    True, it depends on individual methods for data collection. Still, there should be some evidence for the effectiveness of video surveillance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_London doesn't really reflect a significant influence. It is falling slightly, just analogous to almost any other European city or capital.
spzb 5y ago

WickyNilliams 5y ago

It's worth noting the majority of cctv cameras in the UK are privately owned, watching over private property, not owned by the state. So you can assume a) they're not actively monitored b) recordings are stored only for short periods of time (and retained only in event of a crime) Don't get me wrong, UK has a strange fixation with CCTV. But I wonder how these figures would look if you excluded privately owned cameras Edit: more information here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_the_Uni...