Britain leads the world in the use of closed circuit television to discourage crime on our streets, and enjoys the highest known proportion of CCTV coverage. Go into any town or city centre and you will see large white rectangles on poles, each housing an expensive camera, linked to a control room. They allow the operator to observe the surrounding area at close range, but how much do these things cost? How effective are they? And do we really want a stranger watching our every move?

Many London town councils have spent a lot of money on these systems. Kingston council have spent £674,000, Enfield has a £500,000 CCTV monitoring station and it cost Watford council £910,000 to fit its constant surveillance system, which led directly to 93 arrests last year.

In total, Department of Trade and Industry figures suggest that, so far, over £600 million has been spent on covering the country with cameras, with a further £153 million being added to the total this year.

But despite the amount of money spent on surveillance systems, their use is fairly limited. Of the 93 arrests generated by Watford's cameras, 61% were for minor offences such as "drunk and disorderly".

Recent Home Office studies show that CCTV works as an effective deterrent against property crime such as burglary and vandalism, but that this becomes less useful over time, as criminals learn to work around the cameras.

The same research suggests that this kind of surveillance will not reduce muggings and assaults, as the technology is not sophisticated enough to "see" the criminals involved.

According to CCTV salesman and expert, Robin Somes, "A camera needs to be under 5.3 metres away from its target to take an accurate picture of someone. You can improve this by making the camera zoom in on someone, but this reduces the overall area covered by a camera". This makes recognizing a criminal a risky prospect, and requires an observant operator watching the monitors.

For maximum effieciency, a full CCTV system needs to be manned 24 hours a day, but this is expensive. For example, the system in Enfield costs £300,000 a year to run. To assist (and in some cases replace) the human component of these monitoring machines, sophisticated computer software has been added to the mix. Cameras can now, with the right programming, watch for unusual behaviour, alerting the appropriate people as needed.

However for video footage to be useful in a court case, the people caught on it must be easily identifiable, which isn't always the case. Studies made by psychologists Vicki Bruce of the University of Stirling and Mike Burton of the University of Glasgow, showed that in ideal conditions (high quality pictures and neutral expressions), only 70% of the 200 faces shown could be correctly identified by members of the public.

The idea of constant surveillance is also a political issue. The European Union is considering placing restrictions on the use of CCTV in criminal convictions, as well as introducing a code of practice for the proper use of CCTV system.

Currently, they are no laws governing the use of electronic surveillance in a public place. Though this is not unusual in itself, it may contravene the European Convention on Human Rights, specifically the section dealing with "the Right to respect for private and family life".

The UK Public CCTV Surveillance Regulation Campaign has been trying raise money to pursue a test case under the Human Rights Act, and organizations such Amnesty International are concerned that the use of CCTV could lead to a "Big Brother" state, where the individual is under constant observation.

Methods of protest are varied, but among the most interesting are those encouraged by TV comedian, Mark Thomas.

Thomas has offered an award of £500 to the person who can create "the most creative short film". Under the Data Protection Act of 1984, owners of a CCTV are legally required to hand over video footage of an individual, if that individual asks for the footage.

The main aim of this competition is to raise public awareness over the issue of CCTV, though it may take a lot more than a few stunts to get the public asking not just "who watches the watchmen", but whether these cameras even do what they're supposed to - and if not, why we are paying for them...

Edward Fortune

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