London is blanketed with CCTV cameras??

[parky76]

I was just in England and Wales for the last 9 days, with 3 days in London.

I've heard about how supposedly London is blanketed with CCTV cameras everywhere, watching every step we take.

But I have to tell ya, I barely saw 20 cameras on my whole trip.

I walked from Belgravia to Big Ben and Parliament, from Trafalgar Square up the Theatre area, passed Chinatown.

I walked from the Thames to the War Museum.

Where are all these cameras? Were they hidden? Did the mind-control gas on my Vigrin Atlantic flight make me think they werent there?

Or, is it all, as they say in Britain, "rubbish"?

[mummymonkey]

I'm skeptical of the figures bandied about for CCTV cameras and for the supposed "Big Brother" capabilities. It's not as if they all feed into some kind of huge master computer somewhere.
Many of the cameras are on private premises for their own security and insurance purposes. The building I work in has four external cameras alone, but nobody ever looks at the disks.

[dudalb]

I admit:When I am in London, I can't resist making a face at the CCTV Cameras although I am sure the poor cops monitoring see this a thousand times a day.

[parky76]

i also didnt see lots of cops. even when obama was around. i guess it was a well kept NWO secret.

but the London Underground REALLY needs air conditioning. that was horrible.

[van_dutch]

I think that the numbers of cameras are blown out of proportion. I also think that they have some hidden cameras or at least ones that are more difficult to spot/disguised in some fashion. From a security standpoint it makes sense that some cameras are obvious and others are not. An obvious camera can curb illegal behaviors. A hidden/disguised camera prevents people from dodging them.

[rymdman]

Sort of on topic, or slightly related at least :)


FACELESS
- a CCTV sci-fi fairy-tale by MANU LUKSCH

SYNOPSIS In a society under the reformed 'Real-Time' Calendar, without history nor future, everybody is faceless. A woman panics when she wakes up one day with a face. With the help of the Spectral Children she slowly finds out more about the lost power and history of the human face and begins the search for its future.

FACELESS was produced under the rules of the 'Manifesto for CCTV Filmmakers'. The manifesto states, amongst other things, that additional cameras are not permitted at filming locations, as the omnipresent existing video surveillance (CCTV) is already in operation.

voice: TILDA SWINTON
choreography: THE BALLET BOYZ
soundtrack: MUKUL piano music: RUPERT HUBER
produced by AMOUR FOU and AMBIENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS contact: info[at]ambientTV.NET
international distribution / sales: SIXPACK FILM , contact: Gerald Weber gerald[at]sixpackfilm.com

http://www.ambienttv.net/content/?q=facelessthemovie

MANIFESTO FOR CCTV FILMMAKERS
http://www.ambienttv.net/content/?q=dpamanifesto

[dudalb]

i also didnt see lots of cops. even when obama was around. i guess it was a well kept NWO secret.

but the London Underground REALLY needs air conditioning. that was horrible.

If it gets above 85 F in London, you are in trouble,because of the humidity.
My wife and I were in London on vacation back in 2003 when that record breaking heatwave began. You don't even want to know what London is like when it hits 99.
I have been in Washington DC in the summer, where the humidity combined with the heat make it very unpleasent, but it ain't nothing compared to London when it really heats up.

[dudalb]

FACELESS
- a CCTV sci-fi fairy-tale by MANU LUKSCH

SYNOPSIS In a society under the reformed 'Real-Time' Calendar, without history nor future, everybody is faceless. A woman panics when she wakes up one day with a face. With the help of the Spectral Children she slowly finds out more about the lost power and history of the human face and begins the search for its future.

FACELESS was produced under the rules of the 'Manifesto for CCTV Filmmakers'. The manifesto states, amongst other things, that additional cameras are not permitted at filming locations, as the omnipresent existing video surveillance (CCTV) is already in operation.

voice: TILDA SWINTON
choreography: THE BALLET BOYZ
soundtrack: MUKUL piano music: RUPERT HUBER
produced by AMOUR FOU and AMBIENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS contact: info[at]ambientTV.NET
international distribution / sales: SIXPACK FILM , contact: Gerald Weber gerald[at]sixpackfilm.com











Nothing is sillier then someone trying too hard to be avant garde.
What amazes me is that someone as talented as Tilda Swinton wastes her time on this psuedo intellectual crap.

[Darat]

No one even knows how many CCTV cameras are active in the UK, certainly the vast majority of them will be private and nowt to do with the police or government or local government or security services.

[geni]

I was just in England and Wales for the last 9 days, with 3 days in London.

I've heard about how supposedly London is blanketed with CCTV cameras everywhere, watching every step we take.

But I have to tell ya, I barely saw 20 cameras on my whole trip.

I walked from Belgravia to Big Ben and Parliament, from Trafalgar Square up the Theatre area, passed Chinatown.

I walked from the Thames to the War Museum.

Where are all these cameras? Were they hidden? Did the mind-control gas on my Vigrin Atlantic flight make me think they werent there?

Or, is it all, as they say in Britain, "rubbish"?

Probably far more than 20 along that route. Private cameras tend to be low profile. Not hidden per se but you wouldn't spot them without looking quite carefuly. You've also got a bunch of listed buildings along that route which would have to have low profile cameras. That said as soon as you moved off the main streets you are likely not to be covered.

[gumboot]

I suspect others are right - someone somehow got an estimate of how many CCTV cameras in total were in the UK (God knows how they came up with the figure, probably guessed) and some Conspiracy Theorist nut decided the Gubmint was using all of them. I mean, the average petrol station probably has 5 or 6 cameras. I guess they're all part of big brother too...

[gumboot]

Question for the Brits...

Do you have laws about using private cameras to surveillance public property? Here in New Zealand there was a bit of a stir a while ago because a couple put up a surveillance camera looking out onto the street they lived on. In New Zealand this is a breach of privacy as private citizens are not allowed to conduct surveillance on public property.

[geni]

Question for the Brits...

Do you have laws about using private cameras to surveillance public property?


Unless you are counting certain military installations as public property no. You may run into issues with what you do with the resulting videos mind.

[moon1969]

Twoofers think that NWO guidebook is 1984 by George Orwell. Orwellian police state and the Big Brother? Even tough Orwell probaly was talking about societies like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.

[plumjam]

When I was in the Met police my colleague and myself were given the task of going round our whole beat area (comprising 15,000 residents and dozens of businesses, schools etc..) and filling a form in wherever there was a CCTV camera. The form would provide the camera owner's name, address, phone number, number of cameras, type of camera, period of recording (i.e. how long the disk/tape would record before recycling/deleting... or whether data was stored for longer periods), and the area which each camera covered.
This was part of an at least London-wide operation (possibly national, but I don't remember us being informed either way on that).. called IIRC Operation Rainbow. We were informed that the motivation behind it was concerns about terrorism.

It was a bit of an impossible task for just two of us, so we just concentrated on the main shopping streets, businesses and schools. There are plenty of private residences with cameras looking out onto the street, but we weren't going to knock on thousands of doors, especially when many people would not be at home.

There are a lot more cameras about than you would ordinarily realise; they come in all shapes and sizes, and most people carrying out their daily activities just are not looking for them, and if they do, perhaps not in the right places.
Do I think it's part of a NWO Big Brother conspiracy? Not really, but then how would I be able to tell? The fact that a huge database was being set up to log all that info about every camera we could find, might push people in that direction.
But in the day to day practicality (which I was party to), the info was there simply in order to be able to contact the owners of cameras which may have been able to provide evidence about common or garden crimes which had taken place in the vicinity.

It's also worth mentioning that the clear presence of cameras is a definite deterrent to criminals, who will decamp to less surveilled areas when possible.

[Bobert]

The CCTV cameras in London are outfitted with facial recognition software which will match a face against a database of known criminals/terrorists.

[fuelair]

Nothing is sillier then someone trying too hard to be avant garde.
What amazes me is that someone as talented as Tilda Swinton wastes her time on this psuedo intellectual crap.
I much preferred her in Female Perversions and Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe.

[Darat]

The CCTV cameras in London are outfitted with facial recognition software which will match a face against a database of known criminals/terrorists.

No "they" are not - some may be.

[Rika]

Not all CCTV cameras are equal. Personally, I see the reasoning for them. I don't like having them, but they kinda make sense.

[Mojo]

I was just in England and Wales for the last 9 days, with 3 days in London.


And you didn't let us know so the UK contingent could use you as an excuse for meeting up for a drink.

Shame on you.

[Mojo]

Not all CCTV cameras are equal. Personally, I see the reasoning for them. I don't like having them, but they kinda make sense.


I'm not keen on the one directly opposite my local pub. I'm worried that my doctor may have access to it.

[Rika]

May? He put it there JUST FOR YOU..

[Mojo]

:boxedin:

[Worm]

The CCTV cameras in London are outfitted with facial recognition software which will match a face against a database of known criminals/terrorists.

A large proportion of CCTV cameras don't have anything like the resolution required to identify a face.

A lot are also not monitored on a regular basis, and the recording will only be checked in the wake of an incident to see if anthing was captured that might be useful.

ANPR (automatic number plate recognition) can be activated on cameras, which does have some security concerns, but it's hardly evidence of some conspiracy.

[Mojo]

The CCTV cameras in London are outfitted with facial recognition software which will match a face against a database of known criminals/terrorists.


Don't worry: just rub your face with lemon juice (http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf).

[Professor Yaffle]

You can see a map of all the traffic/parking CCTV cameras in Westminster here:

http://www3.westminster.gov.uk/maps/index.cfm

This won't include all the private ones on businesses etc though.

[Gaspode]

There's also the "ring of steel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London%27s_%22ring_of_steel%22)" around the City of London. And the congestion charge cameras.

Some of the newer buses have cctv cameras. There's also quite a few cameras on the tube network including some trains.

[Dave_46]

I suspect others are right - someone somehow got an estimate of how many CCTV cameras in total were in the UK (God knows how they came up with the figure, probably guessed) and some Conspiracy Theorist nut decided the Gubmint was using all of them. I mean, the average petrol station probably has 5 or 6 cameras. I guess they're all part of big brother too...

Working entirely on (fallible) memory, I recall hearing that someone walked down Fulham High Street counting cameras, and extrapolated that to the whole UK.

(I have no reference for this, and it may well have been fabricated (but not by me))

Dave

[leonAzul]

It's also worth mentioning that the clear presence of cameras is a definite deterrent to criminals, who will decamp to less surveilled areas when possible.

Hear! Hear! The Verse [sic] o' Reason.

Gimme a witness!