A question for you Britons here.......

[Hamish Durie]

I waved to one once
it waved back
I was scared

 

[Gunner 51]

I find the surveillance state to be incredibly intrusive to be the first blow in chipping away the civil liberties we in Britain take for granted. But the Closed Circuit Television Cameras aren't just in the streets, they're in practically every building around - you can't scratch your arse without some voyeuristic type watching you.

First they put CCTV cameras everywhere, then it's stop'n'search, then full-body scanners in airports and armed policemen everywhere. Before you know it, you have yourself a fascist state and the populace can't rebel because the state knows what you're up to before you put it into action.

The CCTV cameras are the vanguard of a paranoid people and an incompetent state.

wait wait wait wait, the person who doesn't want to be seen on camera for no real reason is calling other people paranoid.

Pot kettle black mate.

Sorry, I shouldn't have put that down. That was a brainfart on my end.

Please accept my revised version...
"The CCTV cameras are the vanguard of a paranoid and incompetent state."

 

[MGlBlaze]

I still think it is a slippery slope. But I'm the kind of guy who would like my private life to remain just that. If I want to go to the chemist for some prophylactics or even take a shower - I don't want to be videotaped doing it on the grounds that it's embarrassing and intrusive. (Even if I don't notice it, I still think it's morally wrong to videotape someone without their consent.)

But the cameras are everywhere. Not just ones that log your whereabouts, but we're talking speed cameras too. Those things have people diverting their attention from the road to their speedometers.

I don't see how inconveniencing and spying on the public all the time justifies catching a few drunken fools on a Friday night. The means don't justify the ends.

No, it... really isn't. It's a significant leap to go from CCTV cameras in the streets to being video-taped while taking a shower.

Also if speed cameras make you take your attention away from the road and diverting it to the speedometer more than usual, that says much more about someone's (lack of) driving ability and safety rather than the presence of the cameras'.

 

[Gunner 51]

No, it... really isn't. It's a significant leap to go from CCTV cameras in the streets to being video-taped while taking a shower.

Also if speed cameras make you take your attention away from the road and diverting it to the speedometer more than usual, that says much more about someone's (lack of) driving ability and safety rather than the presence of the cameras'.

I guess my main point is you can act lawfully and do things you'd rather not be caught doing, but it's still an intrusion to be video taped doing so without one's consent. We all have something to hide.

But when it comes to speeding. I think it is possible to speed in a safe fashion, so long as the driver is alert and is in control of their car - they should be fine. I find a traffic police officer's discretion to be a fairer judge than a speed camera. An encounter with a firm but fair policeman sticks in a speeder's mind a lot more than a faceless and forgettable fine.

 

[Trivun]

As an Englishman I don't see any problem with cameras, and I don't feel like my privacy is being breached. The way I've always seen it is that if you have nothing to hide then why argue against CCTV cameras at all? I have nothing to hide, so I'm all for them. If they started trying to wire up my home or whatever with cameras then yes, I would have a problem, because that is breaching your privacy, but in public it's all good. If you don't like being caught on film then don't go outside, it's that simple.

 

[kickassfrog]

As I understand, the UK is the country with the most surveillance cameras than any other. I'm from the US and so don't understand much about this. So I decided to ask.

My question for you members from the good old UK, does this bother you? Do you feel your privacy has been breached?

Thanks for any input.

It doesn't actually bother me, but I think the people who call it invasion of privacy would be the first to cry foul if they got burgled and the burglar got away without being caught on CCTV.

In short, I don't mind, because I don't break the law.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

The phrase that the labour government and cctv supporters used to use was "You have nothing to fear if you're doing nothing wrong" .. which just strikes me as something straight out of 1984
But yes i do feel our colllective privacy has been breached, especially when half the time cctv cant actually be used to help in catching criminals, and its not even much of a deterant against crime either

 

[MGlBlaze]

I guess my main point is you can act lawfully and do things you'd rather not be caught doing, but it's still an intrusion to be video taped doing so without one's consent. We all have something to hide.

But when it comes to speeding. I think it is possible to speed in a safe fashion, so long as the driver is alert and is in control of their car - they should be fine. I find a traffic police officer's discretion to be a fairer judge than a speed camera. An encounter with a firm but fair policeman sticks in a speeder's mind a lot more than a faceless and forgettable fine.

Yeah, I guess I can see where you're coming from, though I still don't completely agree.

Though on the subject of speeding, that's a VERY subjective thing. Some people are very good drivers and can handle speed, others THINK they're good drivers and can barely handle the legal limit, let along think they can get away with going faster and end up having a crash or making someone else crash. Not to mention the countless other variations in between and outside.

My view is "If you think you're good enough to go over the limit in a given area, you're almost certainly not as good as you think."

 

[bimbley]

Btw the term is "Britons" you yankie dumbass.
Also the word is said "Al-oo-min-ee-um" you hick prick
I'll stop now.

Good idea, because you've made yourself look very stupid.

As someone who has bothered to educate themself in something before sounding off like an expert in it, very little annoys me quite as much as the fuckwits who act as though just because they're from England they've got some kind of automatic expertise in the language. It's not your ignorance that gets to me, but your arrogance is unbearable.

It is neither pronounced nor spelled 'Aluminium' in American English and there's nothing wrong with that. It is 'Aluminum'. The discoverer of the element (Sir Humphrey something... I forget) used both spellings (plus a few other alternatives) in his work on the subject and the word did not come into common use until much, much later. At that time the English settled on one spelling and the Americans on another, neither has any superior value over the other. They're just different.

Also, it's 'Yankee'.

And if you're wondering, I'm English born and bred.

I'll let the real topic carry on now. As you were everyone!

-Bim

 

[Gunner 51]

Yeah, I guess I can see where you're coming from, though I still don't completely agree.

Though on the subject of speeding, that's a VERY subjective thing. Some people are very good drivers and can handle speed, others THINK they're good drivers and can barely handle the legal limit, let along think they can get away with going faster and end up having a crash or making someone else crash. Not to mention the countless other variations in between and outside.

My view is "If you think you're good enough to go over the limit in a given area, you're almost certainly not as good as you think."

I'll agree with you on other road users. Some people are damned good drivers who can handle the speed and there's a whole load of others who merely think they can handle it. Perhaps advanced driving lessons should be made cheaper to improve standards on the roads these days.

Though I rather liked your quote though, it's quite a humble and sensible view if I may so.

 

[RagTagBand]

Well, CCTV cameras are all in public so i'm not entirely sure how its even -possible- for my privacy to be breached.

They don't bother me at all, I hardly even notice them.

And yes they perform a good service. Despite what most people think they're not just for the retrospective identification of criminals. In city centers/hotspots, CCTV cameras are manned and provide the police with invaluable information about where they should go, what they should prioritize and what service (Fire, ambulance, regular police, armed police) to send. This is especially valuable at night, when there are hundreds of drunks roaming the streets.

Their cost justifies their service, unlike a ton of other things which don't but that people dont seem to mind. But people are idiots so it's unsurprising that they'll mostly just parrot whatever Jeremy Clarkson says.

 

[mental_looney]

Shrug they aren't in my house and I don't break the law or anything so them watching me as I wander around town or in shops is hardly a big deal, however it's only really an issue in cities.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

They are a waste of money that allows the police to not do their job at the point of contact. Would the police have stood back during the riots if they didn't have CCTV to do their job for them? Nope, they would have moved in to stop the crime. CCTV cost our country and our people quite a lot in July.

It's also quite often misused to cover up police murders like the poor Brazilian bastard in London. CCTV everywhere and none of it showed the truth of the blunder. It's fine to use it to prosecute minor criminals but when it comes to the police it magically disappears or doesn't work.

It didn't stop me from fighting a smackhead in my local town and it didn't save me from getting an 80 quid fine for swearing on my telephone.

CCTV is a symptom of the problem not a solution.

 

[Genericjim101]

Honestly the whole Big Brother thing is a slippery slope fallacy with mass amounts of exaggeration. I also couldn't give a flying fart if some dude monitoring the CCTV sees me jamming tongues with who or whatever on the street XD. There's and idea ! Combat CCTV with legal exhibitionism : D

Place a pair of real life Fat Slags in front of every camera ( PS Fat Slags are characters from Viz. Know your British comics)

 

[glyn]

I don't commit crimes and the cams aint in my house, so I dont have an issue

They aren't in your house yet

Only cameras we have around here are in major points (if 'major' even applies to Cannock in any sense of the word) of the shopping centre. They don't bother me to be fair, whatever helps security stopping the layabout trying to shank me over who was in line for a Greggs sausage roll first.

They still try to though because they either aren't smart enough to worry about the cameras, know they'll do no good or desperate for that meat and pastry goodness. Any way you look at it, let the pratt go first.

It doesn't bother me that they're there in regards to privacy, as they don't look into my house or anything. But don't be mislead - this isn't like 1984 - you don't walk down the street only to have cameras ominously following you. In fact, I've hardly noticed. Of course they're outside quite a few shops or banks but that can be expected.

They are following you, that's the point of them. My mate used to work in the control room in Stoke and they could follow anyone they liked with the cameras...strangely enough, scantily clad girls seem to get followed a lot...Just because you're not being followed by a hovering cam-droid doesn't mean you're not being observed.

Take the shots of that bloke drunkenly walking home in London that were on the news a week or 2 ago. They followed him for ages, no doubt laughing at his repeated attempts to smash his face open on the floor. They never sent anyone to help/arrest him but followed him from pub to home.

I am not from the UK, but I once made holiday there. One night we got drunk and were weaving over a street as out of the sudden a voice out of a speaker told us, that we are not allowed to weave here. As a someone from a country that is really ***** about cameras and privacy (Germany) I found that highly disturbing. My friend then kicked down a bin and we run away.

Hold on a bloody second I just read this and, WHAT?
I have never encountered any of this sort of thing in all my 16 years of living here.
The only place I'd expect to encounter such a thing is in YOUR country of Germany (Circa 1942)

I call thee a LIAR!

I know I shouldn't feed the troll but...this is a feature of some cameras, the operator plugs into the camera and starts giving instructions. One night out my mate was relieving himself in an alley and a disembodied voice shouted "don't do that", we legged it and the voice followed us coming from different cameras until we'd left the town centre.

As an Englishman I don't see any problem with cameras, and I don't feel like my privacy is being breached. The way I've always seen it is that if you have nothing to hide then why argue against CCTV cameras at all? I have nothing to hide, so I'm all for them. If they started trying to wire up my home or whatever with cameras then yes, I would have a problem, because that is breaching your privacy, but in public it's all good. If you don't like being caught on film then don't go outside, it's that simple.

Yeah, because that's really an option. Depending on where you live, they're already looking in your house. So you've got to not go out and keep the curtains shut.

I'll agree with you on other road users. Some people are damned good drivers who can handle the speed and there's a whole load of others who merely think they can handle it. Perhaps advanced driving lessons should be made cheaper to improve standards on the roads these days.

Though I rather liked your quote though, it's quite a humble and sensible view if I may so.

One day they'll learn that speed doesn't kill anyone, inadequate stopping distance does. next time you're on the motorway look at the line of people smuggly doing 50mph in the slow lane 3 feet from the car in front and I'm doing 71mph with 200 yards stopping distance and *I'm* the bad driver. They don't even leave and stopping distance when there are chevrons on the road telling you the minimum distance you're supposed to be.

I like the way the roads are done in France, 130kph in the dry, 110kph in the wet. Though they'd actually have to employ people who can think rather than spend the £20 million+ they spent on the average speed section of the M6. (Not to mention the 18 months of disruption it caused)

How long it'll take to make the money back from that I hate to think, surely 1 policeman + car per mile (who can do other things if necessary like help stranded motorists) would be more cost-effective than a lot of concrete and metal that does nothing but cause agro.

Then again, there are less back handers in employing people over putting in massive roadworks

Yes, I'm bitter ;-)

 

[CannibalCorpses]

Their cost justifies their service, unlike a ton of other things which don't but that people dont seem to mind. But people are idiots so it's unsurprising that they'll mostly just parrot whatever Jeremy Clarkson says.

Speed cameras have been proven to cause accidents in quite a few places rather than stop them. Parroting facts isn't parroting the person who makes you aware of them

 

[glyn]

Shrug they aren't in my house and I don't break the law or anything so them watching me as I wander around town or in shops is hardly a big deal, however it's only really an issue in cities.

Yeah, mental loongey...
It's not a big deal in towns but is in cities! You're going to have to explain that one a bit more

 

[mrF00bar]

I feel is has breached my privacy but then again they are doing that all the time, I fear it won't be long until the police force over here starts behaving like the U.S police I hear so much about. At least ours don't have guns.

 

[Deadlyveggie]

Until we shape up, properly invade France and rename it, there will only ever be one Britain. However, as a Briton (lol, sorry about that ) it does kinda urke me knowing I'm always being watched....

You have NO idea how hard it it to stay hidden in nursery bushes these days