For Your Information
The new politics of personal information
Stop chewing!
at 6:14pm on Wednesday, 4th April 2007
I can't help but think of those particularly miserly teachers whose hatred of a pupil engaged in any form of mastication knew few bounds. The BBC reports that the trial to install CCTV cameras with speakers, which bark out admonitions to citizens engaging in particular forms of anti-social behaviour, is being extended to 20 more sites.John Reid usefully interjected that a minority of people will be concerned about 'what they claim' are civil liberty intrusions, whereas the majority will be more interested in how the sound of a local school boy telling you to pick up that Fanta can, or stop beating up a fellow clubber, will reduce the burden of yobbery.
An interesting idea - I suspect that many people might not really care about having some talking CCTV cameras, so long as there is a clear understanding about the limits and regulations to how, why - and by whom - CCTV cameras, and the information they produce, are used. There are 4.2 million cameras in the UK. It doesn't really seem like a choice between 'civil liberties' and CCTV cameras in the way that we often think.
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However, without the threat of instant and terrifying retribution it is difficult to see how this will really do anything more than provide a form of entertainment for local youngsters and prangsters alike. I have been making faces at CCTV cameras for years. If I could have some real feedback from the camera to let me know someone had seen that would just be even more gratifying...