Surveillance Society

 17th May 2012


Welcome to my world at 30 blog (don't worry in a years time I'll change it to 31, but let's not think about that just yet!). So anyway, this is the start of the journey. Congratulations for being on board and hope you keep reading.

Today while I was walking through York City Centre I was rather alarmed to see these two large security cameras sticking out from the top of Betty's Tearooms (of all places) filming people walking down New Street and Lendal Square. "Smile, your on camera" I uttered to myself as I walked past looking upward. Now I have walked down New Street and past the hallowed tearooms many a time, but never have I noticed these Big Brother style objects poking odiously out of the top of the building at me before. How long have they been there?

I know why they are there . To monitor us as we walk past and make sure we are all being good little subjects. Now  I have nothing at all to hide. I have no intention of committing a crime with or without the presence of cameras and I am sure there were many like-minded people passing them that day. What is more are these cameras there to replace the traditional "bobby on the beat" so they can sit in their offices shuffling papers instead of getting their hands dirty? Do they really cut crime? If I was a shoplifter would I think twice about committing my crime on that particular street because of the presence of them? Probably, just in the same way that I make sure I'm doing 30mph when driving past a speed camera..but then I am not a criminal so I don't think like one.

But where does this all end? Not only is the UK the most watched and surveillanced country in the world through CCTV there were also laws proposed by the government to also monitor e-mails, facebook, and indeed this blog! Will this blog become like Winston Smith's diary in George Orwell's 1984?

Local Councils have spent £550m on CCTV in the past four years and there are just under 2 million of them in the whole of the UK, making us the most watched country in the world. If there are so much CCTV cameras in the country then why has the crime rate not gone down? I do not feel like since all these cameras have been installed, including these ones in York that Britain has become a safer place. In fact in the past ten years I think the amount of anti-social behaviour and crime has increased and is getting worse so how have cameras watching our every move actually helped us or made Britain a safer place?

        




Smile you are on camera! Do we really need to be spied upon while going about our daily business?