Richard's Kingdom

There’s an interesting discussion on David Davis’ opinions about CCTV on Samizdata. Quoth Davis: Today I have been explaining that I am not against CCTV- but if it is going to be used the cameras should be able to provide clear images and all of the evidence should be usable in court. Currently only 20% [...]

I was saddened to read this letter, dated 20 August 2007, on the problems being caused by the intrusive, interventionist and illiberal social care policies this government has introduced. Wouldn’t it be better if social workers, teachers, the police, healthcare professionals and others in public service were empowered to build respectful, constructive relationships with their [...]

During the recent local Government elections, the Liberal Democrat candidates for my area campaigned in part on a ticket of installing more CCTV cameras. They didn’t really explain the benefits or trade-offs for the community, but they did claim the proposal was part of their strategy to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour. I emailed them [...]

If you live in the UK you’ll be aware of the pervasiveness of Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) systems, which apparently film the average Brit hundreds of times per day (although there are no reliable figures). It turns out this is a pointless exercise. CCTV is rubbish at preventing crime, uneconomical at detecting it, useless at helping [...]

Updated @ 2008/05/20 21:40 GMT Spy blog reports it has received more details on the FootPath system from the manufacturer. Their update provides factual corrections to the original story. I have therefore included appropriate updates here too. The Times reports that customers in some shopping centres are being secretly tracked without their knowledge using signals [...]