CCTV is a threat to freedom

The House of Lords have expressed their view that privacy is an “essential prerequisite to the exercise of individual freedom” (1). We can no longer say that we live private lives when every move is being watched by one out of the four million CCTV cameras in Britain. Our every move is being watched. Such surveillance renders our society as equivalent to a large scale big brother. Our every move can be traced and information can be gathered about our daily activities. If this information were to be misplaced, which central government seems to do frequently, then who knows what other breaches our freedoms will endure.

(1)http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/06/surveillance-freedom-peers

Local councils are not using their powers of surveillance to stop the crimes which you or I would consider important. Instead, such instruments are being used as a profit making excuse. Local councils are using the cameras to catch people who do not clean up dog foul and fly tip. To discover whether rights are harmed a balancing exercise needs to take place. The minimal criminal protection which local governments are using the CCTV for is not enough to override our freedom of privacy. This freedom is being threatened for local government’s financial benefit, clearly this is not a fair exchange.

Criminals can also use CCVT for their own purposes via hacking. This means that they too can gather information which will in no doubt assist them in their cause.

Such examination is only utilised in a society if it is revealed to society. At present, we are not informed of any terrorist activity before it occurs, we are merely left to carry on with our daily lives. We receive no benefit. As with the Twin Towers, when it was held that there was intelligence as to the plane hi-jackers intentions, yet it was not given serious thought. To justify an encroachment upon our right, surely the CCTV cameras should provide some benefit for us individual members of society. Retroactive action is simply not good enough.

This argument of course presupposes that we believe the Jean Charles Menezes case was investigated thoroughly. We have known for years that we have a corrupt police force. Stephen Lawrence highlighted the institutional racism which is inherent in our police force and the Menezes case has only served to show society that the police force is nothing more than a band of brothers who protect each others interests. With such a police force, CCTV footage can be tampered with or simply ‘lost’ in the administrative system. Thus, CCTV footage is merely a helpful tool for the police force, not to society as a whole.

CCTV is a threat to freedom as it can often provoke someone to committ a crime. For those people who are not keen on being watched, it can be unnerving and drive someone to take it out on the camera. Nobody likes the speed cameras, for example, which are basically another form of CCTV. These cameras in particular along with a few cameras outside smaller businesses are often damaged or completely destroyed. This constitutes a crime of malicious mischief.

There is also the threat that when there is a chance of being caught on CCTV it gives the criminal a bigger ‘buzz’ when they think they could committ an illegal act right under the authorities nose and walk away from it.

This all basically falls back on provocation. The criminal can either become more daring with the bigger ‘rush’ and more risk added to their devient behaviour or, some people who, under all usual circumstances, are calm, law abiding citizens may be pushed to destroy the cameras to prevent some stranger watching them and thus restricting their freedom of privacy. This destruction is a crime that could be prevented if the cameras were not there.