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They are watching. So What?What do we have to be afraid of?It has never bothered me that video cameras might be watching in public places because public places are public. It is a very simple concept to grasp. When you are in a public place people might be observing you, you might be seen by unseen observers too, and you have no reason to fear simply being observed. Observation is not oppression. |
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The people who have something to fear are those up to no good. If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear. Surveillance in public places gives the innocent majority cause to feel safer and more secure. In the event of trouble it is likely that the appropriate response is forthcoming. Ambulances, fire engines, security guards and police should be quicker to attend. Video surveillance cameras are in known locations, observed crime or other incidents can be pinpointed accurately. Video cameras can deter trouble in known hotspots. In Stockport I have observed many cameras watching the front of pubs and night clubs, just where mindless hooligans are likely to be causing trouble. Naturally a camera cannot observe or deter a crime where it is not pointing but it is a fatuous idea to think that there is a fixed quantity of mindless hooliganism that must happen, and putting up cameras will only move it somewhere else. Mindless hooliganism requires means, motive and opportunity. Cameras reduce that opportunity. Of course if men are going out at night with the specific intention of getting into a fight then they will find a place to fight unobserved, but I find it hard to believe that all such violence is premeditated and carefully planned, much of it is obviously spontaneous because cameras catch evidence of it, only an idiot would plan a fight under a camera. I really struggle to think up any scenarios in which people with nothing to hide have something to fear by being seen by cameras. People being unfaithful or “pulling a sickie” would have far more to fear from the general public observing them than by a security guard in a booth looking at a bank of TV screens. Such a security guard would see lots of things each day and would be under a duty of confidentiality, which could not be said for your neighbour who might be walking through that same public place. There is no right to anonymity or confidentiality in a public place. The idea that people could be oppressed by cameras is absurd. It smacks of paranoia. Who would have the motivation and resources necessary to keep tabs on everybody? Wouldn't you notice the huge jump in your tax bills to pay all these people to watch the public all the time? This is the stuff of paranoid fantasies. Mounting effective surveillance on a person is hugely expensive, it is prohibitively expensive for any police force to consider running more than a handful of surveillance operations at any one time. It can only be justified for major criminals. In certain circumstances surveillance is mounted on a wider scale, in anticipation of widespread public disturbance. This is justified. Football matches and peaceful demonstrations are fully legitimate public gatherings but rioting and looting is never legitimate. Not to use the best available technology to deter, detect and prevent rioting would be a gross dereliction of duty. In such operations video feeds are fed into computers programed to identify faces of suspected and proven troublemakers, if those faces are spotted they are closely watched. To arrest people because they are suspected of being troublemakers would be an abuse, but not to watch suspects would be negligent. If the usual suspects are arrested on sight that is an abuse but I can see no problem in sending in officers to be seen to be watching the suspects or in tracking the suspects movements and sending in snatch squads the moment any evidence of a crime is observed. Such technology can and should be used to reduce the level of “in your face” policing. While there is no right to be unobserved or anonymous in a public place there is a right not to be spied upon in private. If you walk around your house naked with the curtains open you cannot expect people not to notice you, but you do have the right to expect that people will not be watching you with binoculars or training a video camera through a hole in your wall. This requires a bit of give and take and some applied common sense. If you undress with the curtains open and the light on then you should expect people to notice, you cannot act affronted if your neighbour passes a comment about it but on the other hand if the neighbour sets up a webcam pointed at you that is a different matter again.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
We are right to be aware about cameras, we are right to take notice but there is no reason to react hysterically. In public places think of a video camera as a window with a bored security guard looking out. If you can't think of any reason to feel oppressed by a bored security guard stood on a ladder or peering out of a window there is no reason to fear a camera either. They are not the eyes of a Fascist junta, they are the eyes of a bloke waiting for the end of his tedious shift. 
I couldn't resist the temptation to take this candid shot of Stockport's Town Wardens not watching me. What's sauce for the goose... A short man in a peaked cap and a small moustache, ummm... I wonder... |
© 1999 - 2009 by Martin Willett. |
mwillett.org: Debate Unlimited |
What is so scary about the idea of being seen by a camera? It is a totally
irrational fear. Cameras don't bite, they don't harass you, they don't
oppress you. They are not the start of a slippery slope to an inevitable
and unspeakable future nightmare. Grow up. Cameras are a labour saving
device. They save on security guards and night-watchmen, or they make
such jobs cost effective for the first time. They just allow necessary
jobs to be done more effectively. Just as guns don't kill people cameras
do not erode civil liberties or harass innocent citizens, abuses need
abusers. If you think about the subject rationally you can see that cameras
cannot hurt you, cannot infringe on your rights. You do not have a right
to go into a shop without people watching you to see if you are stealing,
you have no right to ride your skateboard down the platforms in the railway
station, you have no right to beg aggressively in the street. Cameras
cannot stop you doing what you have a right to do but they can help prevent
people acting in illegal and antisocial ways.