It is reasonable to be concerned about issues of who controls, accesses and uses public CCTV surveillance, though I have an impression these days it is YouTube and current affairs programs...

But the basic expectation of privacy from observation whilst in public is tendentious.

It is comparable to expecting everyone else who is out in public to close their eyes in case they see you.

BTW, what is it with agoraphobics? What are they trying to hide from the rest of us?

For the religious,
"The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance."
John Philpot Curran, Dublin 10 July 1790.

[and it was author Thomas Charlton in an 1809 biography who wrote, "fastening upon the minds of the American people the belief, that 'the price of liberty is eternal vigilance'."]

Power and control has always been effectively achieved through intimidation, fear and guilt... and to the extent these protect me from harm, I give cautious and very tentative approval.

But to address R0bert's point concerning "the conflict between finding wrongdoers and arming government with more powerful tools to control the population than have ever existed in history." we need to somehow ensure that government has less smiting power than God.

I find the paranoia in this thread quite amusing. There is an assumption that all cameras have someone watching and judging your actions. In reality while you are in public you are being seen by dozens of people anyway. No one is going spend the money to view the thousands of hours of footage every day. The information is stored on hard drive and only referred to if an incident is reported.

Where the information comes in handy is to provide impartial evidence when an incident occurs, which can help find an assailant or thief, or provide clear evidence in the case of an accident where there are often varying accounts. For example a theme park manager recounted to me how the system has saved him a fortune in injury claims where on the CCTV, the "accidents" are clearly staged.

The cameras cannot guarantee that these incidents are stopped, but they do ensure that justice is meted out. This generally has a deterrent effect on most individuals

Dear SM,

<<No one is going spend the money to view the thousands of hours of footage every day.>>

The technology already exists and keeps improving to have thousands of hours condensed into a short report describing only events that may be relevant, including who was there (based on biometric information), short enough for humans to read in a reasonable time.

That raises more questions than answers on how to possibly prevent this information from falling in the wrong hands.

What if the information is used by a tyrannical government to thwart a revolution?
What if the information is leaked to commercial companies by corrupt police, who then use it for advertising or for industrial espionage?
What if the information is stolen by interested parties?
What if, based on those cameras, a policewoman sees her husband in a park at night with another woman?
What if the crime-clip reaches the news, causing innocent by-standers or passers-by to also be shown on TV or youtube?
What if the horrible "crime" is just a busting person relieving their call-of-nature between the bushes in a park?

I could go on filling page after page of such questions...

I actually do not have an argument with cameras at the sites of possible terrorist targets such a Parliament House or embassies but the London bombers were not deterred by their use, if you are a suicide bomber what do you care anyway, nor were the Boston bombers and contrary to runner's assertions they were not identified from camera footage. Further it was not a street camera that identified Jill Maher's attacker it was a fortuitous in-store camera which because of the angle and lighting, made colour identification possible. Usual street cameras offer up quite ordinary images at night.

England now spends a ridiculous 20% of its law enforcement budget on surveillance cameras. Even they are questioning their effectiveness especially in light of abuses.

A 2005 study by University of Leicester, requested by the British Home Office, found that the only place where cameras had a deterrence effect was in thefts from vehicles in carparks. Everywhere else there was a discernible impact either on crime nor fear of crime.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/leicestershire/4294693.stm

Wmtrevor writes;

“But the basic expectation of privacy from observation whilst in public is tendentious.”

How would you feel in upon entering a public street mall three individuals sitting on a park bench watched you the entire time you were walking through that space? I would feel pretty uncomfortable and would more than likely go and ask them what their problem was. I'm not sure having them out of sight should make me feel any better about their actions.

My daughter came home the other day complaining that a man had been taking pictures of her surreptitiously at a bus station. After staring him down she went to complain to the staff and was told they knew him and that he does it quite often. They did nothing to stop him. Studies have shown that 1 in 10 women in public places are targeted by camera operators for purely voyeuristic reasons. Perhaps the increasing pervasiveness on surveillance cameras now means that this sort of behaviour is acceptable. It certainly wasn't for my daughter nor is it for me.

Those who want the cameras turned off or removed must have something to hide. We need more cameras. If I was a crim I would love to know where the cameras are turned off so I could go and do my thing. Cameras must cause a lot of anxiety for criminals which is a good thing.

I don't think most criminals give a hoot about cameras.

Let's face it, most of us don't walk about thinking about the fact we're being filmed. A situation where a brawl between a bunch of drunks gets out of hand causing serious injury or death, is one where CCTV footage would be useful....but I don't believe the intoxicated participants are likely to call a truce while they duck into a building to carry on their argument.

It's not put in place to stop "criminals". Street cameras are put in place to try and identify people indulging in anti-social behaviour. Store cameras are mainly about catching thieves or shop-lifters and both are normally only useful for identifying people "after the act".