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The lack of public awareness about the nature of surveillance troubles me. UK public must wake up to risks of CCTV.

DanBC 11y ago
It's a shame you're being downvoted. (I upvoted you, but your comment is still grey.) The man who made the announcement in the submitted article - Tony Porter (the English surveillance commissioner) has previously said similar things as you. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/06/tony-porter-surveillance-commissioner-risk-cctv-public-transparent http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/06/tony-porter-sur... > The increasing use of surveillance technology – including body-worn video, drones and number plate recognition systems – risks changing the “psyche of the community” by reducing individuals to trackable numbers in a database, the government’s CCTV watchdog has warned. > In his full first interview as surveillance commissioner, Tony Porter – a former senior counter-terrorism officer – said the public was complacent about encroaching surveillance and urged public bodies, including the police, to be more transparent about how they are increasingly using smart cameras to monitor people. Opinion polls differ, but it seems that most people in England just don't care about CCTV and that is worrying.
- MrJagil 11y ago
  > It's a shame you're being downvoted. It's not a shame, his post was entirely void of actual content. It's easy to make statements like his, it's a lot harder to make posts like yours with real data to nuance the argument (I'm not being sarcastic in regards to your post).
- tim333 11y ago
  I live in the UK and care about CCTV because three guys on bikes snatched my iPhone in central London and it wasn't covered. Install some more as far as I'm concerned. Also one time in Ireland I had a different three guys thinking of beating me up and then reconsider when they figured I was on camera. There are loads of cases of CCTV catching or deterring criminals. Is there a single case in the UK of someone innocent being harmed by the use of CCTV?
  - DanBC 11y ago
    Did you make data protection requests to all the shops and businesses in the location? Some criminals have been caught by people doing their own detective work.
  - bhayden 11y ago
    The issue isn't that people are suffering direct financial loss or bodily harm due to surveillance. The issue is that it enables authoritarian and repressive governments. You lose your privacy. Anything you do is essentially public information and can be used against you. As shitty as it is, people should have the right to do something like cheat on their spouse without some government official waving the evidence in your face for compliance. Or maybe you're into weird porn, or you read/write embarrassing things on the internet, or you're having sex with your second cousin, or you're gay but also a Christian minister. People shouldn't have to live in fear of their legal actions being used against them.
    - markdown 11y ago
      The type of people in favour of CCTV are likely to be "intellectually unrefined" and probably in favour of CCTV being an impediment to the actions you mentioned.
    - true_religion 11y ago
      > As shitty as it is, people should have the right to do something like cheat on their spouse without some government official waving the evidence in your face for compliance. A lot of these avenues of privacy were only really enabled by the growth of large metropolitan areas. In smaller districts, you can't go to the inn and sleep with another woman because the innkeeper went to highschool with you and will tell your wife. For the vast majority of human society, you had to try a lot harder to hide your activities if you wanted to go against the current social mores. It's not really clear to me that the level of privacy we can easily attain today, even if it is a social good, is not outweighed by the group benefits of social cohesion, and newly found benefits of catching criminals after the fact that CCTV would provide/encourage.
peteretep 11y ago
The risks haven't materialized so far; what exactly are you thinking is going to happen?
- tracker1 11y ago
  Some of the risks have in fact happened... When someone who works in a high government office is slut-shamed out of their position because their personal email was gobbled up that's a pretty big concern. The doesn't even go to show how many people were shamed into doing things other than quit their job... Or stand down as a political opposition... or shut up. That's just part of it. These things are happening and you just don't think about them, or hear about them, because for the most part people have short term memories or are completely complacent. Hell, look at the celebrities whose accounts were hacked, and embarrassing, personal photos leaked, not by the govt in this case, but our governments have this same information. You don't think they'd use it to get you to spy on someone, or inform on others? When you have a surveillance state, everyone is an agent of oppression.
  - peteretep 11y ago
    > someone who works in a high government office is > slut-shamed out of their position because their > personal email was gobbled up CCTV can read email? Scary!
    - tracker1 11y ago
      The point is, with ever increasing information gathering, archival and analysis, anyone can be targeted in any number of ways.
branchless 11y ago
The UK public I'm afraid will never wake up. They just take everything. The UK is a turnkey fascist state. Just waiting for the right psycho.
- TillE 11y ago
  If the scales ever tip to the point where CCTV is being genuinely abused, all you need is a few people with masks and rocks. Or maybe some metal poles. Until then, they are being used to solve serious crimes, like the very recent murder of Hanna K. in Berlin.

DanBC 11y ago

It's a shame you're being downvoted. (I upvoted you, but your comment is still grey.) The man who made the announcement in the submitted article - Tony Porter (the English surveillance commissioner) has previously said similar things as you. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/06/tony-porter-surveillance-commissioner-risk-cctv-public-transparent http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/06/tony-porter-sur... > The increasing use of surveillance technology – including body-worn video, drones and number plate recognition systems – risks changing the “psyche of the community” by reducing individuals to trackable numbers in a database, the government’s CCTV watchdog has warned. > In his full first interview as surveillance commissioner, Tony Porter – a former senior counter-terrorism officer – said the public was complacent about encroaching surveillance and urged public bodies, including the police, to be more transparent about how they are increasingly using smart cameras to monitor people. Opinion polls differ, but it seems that most people in England just don't care about CCTV and that is worrying.

MrJagil 11y ago
> It's a shame you're being downvoted. It's not a shame, his post was entirely void of actual content. It's easy to make statements like his, it's a lot harder to make posts like yours with real data to nuance the argument (I'm not being sarcastic in regards to your post).
tim333 11y ago
I live in the UK and care about CCTV because three guys on bikes snatched my iPhone in central London and it wasn't covered. Install some more as far as I'm concerned. Also one time in Ireland I had a different three guys thinking of beating me up and then reconsider when they figured I was on camera. There are loads of cases of CCTV catching or deterring criminals. Is there a single case in the UK of someone innocent being harmed by the use of CCTV?
- DanBC 11y ago
  Did you make data protection requests to all the shops and businesses in the location? Some criminals have been caught by people doing their own detective work.
- bhayden 11y ago
  The issue isn't that people are suffering direct financial loss or bodily harm due to surveillance. The issue is that it enables authoritarian and repressive governments. You lose your privacy. Anything you do is essentially public information and can be used against you. As shitty as it is, people should have the right to do something like cheat on their spouse without some government official waving the evidence in your face for compliance. Or maybe you're into weird porn, or you read/write embarrassing things on the internet, or you're having sex with your second cousin, or you're gay but also a Christian minister. People shouldn't have to live in fear of their legal actions being used against them.
  - markdown 11y ago
    The type of people in favour of CCTV are likely to be "intellectually unrefined" and probably in favour of CCTV being an impediment to the actions you mentioned.
  - true_religion 11y ago
    > As shitty as it is, people should have the right to do something like cheat on their spouse without some government official waving the evidence in your face for compliance. A lot of these avenues of privacy were only really enabled by the growth of large metropolitan areas. In smaller districts, you can't go to the inn and sleep with another woman because the innkeeper went to highschool with you and will tell your wife. For the vast majority of human society, you had to try a lot harder to hide your activities if you wanted to go against the current social mores. It's not really clear to me that the level of privacy we can easily attain today, even if it is a social good, is not outweighed by the group benefits of social cohesion, and newly found benefits of catching criminals after the fact that CCTV would provide/encourage.

peteretep 11y ago

The risks haven't materialized so far; what exactly are you thinking is going to happen?

tracker1 11y ago
Some of the risks have in fact happened... When someone who works in a high government office is slut-shamed out of their position because their personal email was gobbled up that's a pretty big concern. The doesn't even go to show how many people were shamed into doing things other than quit their job... Or stand down as a political opposition... or shut up. That's just part of it. These things are happening and you just don't think about them, or hear about them, because for the most part people have short term memories or are completely complacent. Hell, look at the celebrities whose accounts were hacked, and embarrassing, personal photos leaked, not by the govt in this case, but our governments have this same information. You don't think they'd use it to get you to spy on someone, or inform on others? When you have a surveillance state, everyone is an agent of oppression.
- peteretep 11y ago
  > someone who works in a high government office is > slut-shamed out of their position because their > personal email was gobbled up CCTV can read email? Scary!
  - tracker1 11y ago
    The point is, with ever increasing information gathering, archival and analysis, anyone can be targeted in any number of ways.

branchless 11y ago

The UK public I'm afraid will never wake up. They just take everything. The UK is a turnkey fascist state. Just waiting for the right psycho.

TillE 11y ago
If the scales ever tip to the point where CCTV is being genuinely abused, all you need is a few people with masks and rocks. Or maybe some metal poles. Until then, they are being used to solve serious crimes, like the very recent murder of Hanna K. in Berlin.