Speaking cctv units outside a church hall warned local residents that if they attended a meeting in the building to discuss the erosion of privacy in the area their images would be identified and, under RIPA legislation, their names logged on a database of potential trouble makers. Fiction of course, but Ipswich Council’s smug comments to local paper Evening Star 24 about its trial of talking cameras contained enough seed for this particular tree to grow should future politicians feel it might be useful.
According to the sinisterly titled Head of Community Safety, the speaking cameras have been a great success. Council workers sitting in a control centre have been able to issue commands and instructions via the cameras to members of the public who they think are, or are about to, break the law.
We’ll not ponder on the question of what training, skills or experience the council workers in the control room have to issue commands based on their reading of potential illegality, as it is a generally accepted fact in Brown’s Britain that anyone who works for a local stasi is a state superman able to implement social engineering policy to the letter.
Instead, let’s dwell on the question of whether the senior pen pushers who run local authorities have the ability to see further than the ends of their noses. It may be amusing of them to back up their claims of success with stories of people not dropping their trousers in public after a few words from the control room. It may be admirable that the speaking cameras have stopped potentially violent late-night incidents getting out of control (and on this example, thinendofthewedge thinks the cameras should not only be able to speak, but also to zap the little buggers with a hefty dose of anthrax, but we’ll ignore personal prejudice at this point).
What is not acceptable is the further strengthening of local control systems which one day might not be put to such benign use. Unfortunately for us however, unintended consequence is not a concept which politicians of any variety currently value.
Tags: cctv, ipswich, speaking cctv, surveillance, uk
