Surveillance cameras are growing at an alarming pace – and featuring more automation, biometric tracking + profiling.
The UK is covered with CCTV at a huge cost to the public purse despite a lack of any evidence that they reduce criminality.
Now, we see schools, supermarkets, shops & even people’s doorbells fitted with surveillance cameras.
The surveillance grid makes us less free & no safer.
This quiet change speaks volumes. The oversight positions of Biometrics Commissioner and Surveillance Camera Commissioner Tony Porter are being merged into one huge role… (Link)
Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch said:
“Mass CCTV enables authoritarian control and intensely monitored populations are prone to self-censorship.
“Live facial recognition is one of the most serious threats to civil liberties of recent years.
“This China-style mass surveillance tool risks turning CCTV cameras into biometric checkpoints and citizens into walking ID cards.
“The UK so closely follows China as a surveillance state should set alarm bells ringing. This country is covered with CCTV at a huge cost to the public purse despite a lack of any evidence that they reduce criminality.
“There is plenty of evidence that such mass CCTV enables authoritarian control and that such intensely monitored populations are prone to self-censorship.”
The future vision for vast CCTV networks, as we have long warned, is no longer passive recording but active tracking and biometric analysis.
It has never been more important to watch the watchers — join us.