Cctv In Public Spaces

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Workshop 4 – Peoples, persons and authority Do surveillance cameras in public spaces have any positive use? Over the last several years there has been a massive increase of surveillance cameras in public space. Video cameras connected to closed circuit television (CCTV) watch us from every angle as we enter shopping centres, take money out ATM machines, cross traffic lights, etc. Our every movement is observed, reviewed, stored and even traded out between different authorities. Neither the government nor the people recorded know what happens to the footage recorded by a majority of these cameras. Due to privatization of the security business the footage made is often privately owned. This leads to storage, trading, selling and broadcasting between companies without notification, permission, or payment to the persons recorded. Numerous experiments have shown that the people observing the cameras, either the police or the ‘private’ security guards have bad character of judgment and even use prejudice in their observations. Evaluations of these experiments have shown that cameras do nothing to prevent violent crimes. CCTV camera systems on the streets would actually displace crime rather than reducing it. These lousy results of several CCTV experiments and the dangerous consequences of CCTV camera systems globally used in the upcoming ‘Electronic Police States’ raise up the following question: Do surveillance cameras in public spaces have any positive use? The United Kingdom currently has over 4.2 million CCTV cameras installed. That is one camera for every fourteen people and every person is captured over hundreds of cameras every day (McCahill & Norris 2003). CCTV cameras increasingly employ bulletproof casing and automated self-defense mechanisms. The pictures are high definition, with cameras being able to scan a pack of cigarette at one hundred metres. In
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