The campaign against cctv
Latest News
CCTV drones - more...
Naked scanners, naked CCTV and barefaced lies - more...
No CCTV on Red Ice Radio - more...
Scots fast becoming most surveilled in the UK - more...
Government appoints CCTV yes man - more...
BBC runs prime-time advert for CCTV game - more...
CCTV in Scotland: Broken Record - more...
Watch No CCTV's presentation - more...
ICO complaint seeks to halt CCTV game - more...
ANPR - policing by consent? - more...
Intenet Eyes - more...
Project Javelin - more...
Hounslow's ''Promise 10'' - more...
Silly Season, Schools and CCTV - more...
BBC breaches charter - more...
CCTV makes crime go up! - more...
CCTV Agenda creeps forward - more...
ANPR - the expanding network of checkpoints - more...
Proposed bill - CCTV expansion in disguise - more...
Students fight school CCTV - more...
Police's surrealist CCTV poster - more...
Victory in police surveillance case - more...
Study confirms ineffectiveness of CCTV - more...
Google Street Update - more...
Anti-CCTV advertising campaign - more...
Surveillance related consultations - more...
Councils misuse of surveillance - more...
Pub Landlord's CCTV victory - more...
Google takes curtain twitching to a new level - more...
Police admit storing images - more...
Back door CCTV expansion - more...
CCTV in pubs - more...
Modern Liberty Convention - more...
Surveillance report slams CCTV - more...
CCTV case at High Court - more...
Forest Fields Folks Against CCTV - more...
Cowley Road CCTV switched on - more...
Play the CCTV Treasure Hunt - more...
CCTV spies on diners - more...
2009: will decision makers heed CCTV warnings - more...
Beat the recession - cut CCTV - more...
London: In the Kingdom of Big Brother - more...
Update: CCTV sanity in Devon - more...
UK and Iran agree on CCTV and Human Rights - more...
Senior police officer calls for CCTV debate - more...
DPP slams surveillance state - more...
Body cams - more...
Freedom Not Fear - more...
CCTV in schools update - more...
Guilty...until we get the CCTV clock fixed - more...
NO CCTV in L'Express - more...
NO-CCTV finds the plot - more...
CameraWatch call for ''upgrades'' - more...
Blackpool CCTV review - more...
More evidence against CCTV - more...
CCTV industry calls for more cameras - more...
Security expert's CCTV warning - more...
Brown sexes up CCTV - more...
David Davis resigns - more...
China's CCTV laboratory - more...
Halt CCTV expansion - more...
UK surveillance sharing - more...
Cowley Road CCTV delays - more...
National cctv strategy starts to bite - more...
cctv in schools - more...
Police admit crime falling - so why install CCTV? - more...
CCTV sanity in Devon! - more...
cctv is a waste of money - more...
No cctv at oxford radical forum - more...
How to beat the recession - cut back on CCTV
- 21/12/2008
The Daily Mail reports that councils around the country are cutting back on CCTV amidst the economic downturn. The Mail quotes Surveillance expert Professor Nigel Gilbert, "who last year produced a report for the Royal Academy of Engineers calling for a halt to CCTV cameras until their need was proven". Gilbert told the Mail:
The evidence suggests surveillance cameras are completely useless as a way of reducing crime, their only use is as a way of collecting evidence a crime has been committed- it doesn't stop it happening in the first place. The public has been misled into believing that it's a silver bullet for crime reduction and actually it is not. I suspect that councils are realising this and therefore it is not a very high priority to look out for crime on CCTV systems. It is not an efficient or cost-effective use of resources.
The article states that it costs Worcester City Council £140,000 a year to pay staff to monitor the town's 63 surveillance cameras "a burden it can no longer afford".
Also quoted is Dr David Murakami-Wood, from The Surveillance Studies Network who said:
Councils are now having cameras on with no one watching or they are having to cut back staffing levels in the recession.CCTV is expensive - local councils did not really think about these costs when they joined the rush to install cameras funded by central government.Now many are realising that they have been saddled with a massive extra cost that in hard times like these can eat into their limited budgets for providing other forms of public safety.
There is a mountain of evidence showing that CCTV is a waste of public money and yet councils around the country continue to fritter money away on this illiberal technology. Now even more so than ever councils should take great care with public funds. Cutting back on CCTV would be a way to free councils from debt and citizens from unwarranted surveillance.
Posted in cctv general - 21/12/2008
email:
