More than just a face in the crowd in 'surveillance Britain'

By Anna Tomforde Apr 12, 2010, 6:07 GMT

London - The unsuspecting visitor to London walking beneath the silent gaze of the surveillance camera will likely be unaware of the maze of darkened control rooms beneath Piccadilly Circus, where his zoomed image makes him stand out from the crowd.

Deep below the pavements of the world's most surveyed city, the enlarged digital images of Londoners and tourists alike will glide across a wall of plasma screens in the CCTV control room of Westminster Council - the nerve centre of London's vast CCTV network.

As the cameras zoom in on anything suspicious, the object of their surveillance sheds its anonymity - no longer being just a face in the crowd.

According to Westminster Council, which is responsible for the area of central London, police forces from around the world have visited to learn how the control centre works.

But civil liberty groups condemn the facility as the most potent symbol of the 'surveillance society' in Britain, where citizens are being watched by an estimated 4.2 million closed circuit cameras - more than anywhere else in the world.

'The cameras have sprung up everywhere over time, but the legislation has not kept up with new technology and there are no clear regulations to govern their use,' Anita Coles of campaign group Liberty told German News Agency dpa.

In Britain, compared with other countries, privacy laws are weak and 'too many organizations' have the power to undertake 'self- authorized' surveillance, ranging from cameras to DNA data bases, telephone tapping and car license plate recognition schemes, she said.

Cameras which not only watch, but also talk, have been singled out by Liberty for their indiscriminate use for 'targeted surveillance' by local councils - often without a clear legal basis.

Talking cameras were first pioneered in the north-western town of Middlesbrough, but have now become a common tool for councils up and down the country to clamp down on street fights, deter litter bugs and put a stop to dog fouling.

'It is a hell of a deterrent,' Jack Bonner, manager of the Middlesbrough scheme told the Daily Mail. 'It's one thing to know there are CCTV cameras about, and another when they loudly point out what you have just done wrong.'

He said the cameras had caused people to 'think twice' before dropping litter, starting a fight or cycling through a pedestrian zone. 'We always make our request politely, and if the offender obeys, the operator adds 'thank you',' he explained.

But one law-abiding passer-by said she was shocked to hear the camera microphones spring into action. 'It really is like Big Brother,' she said.

In London, where a forest of new cameras has been introduced to monitor the congestion charge system for drivers, the authorities have started a pilot scheme in which the registered keepers of vehicles will be sent penalty notices for dropping litter from the car window.

Britain had been 'sleepwalking' into becoming a surveillance society 'which is already all around us,' a report by the country's Information Commissioner said in 2006.

Projecting the situation into the year 2016, the report conjured up scenarios of scanners in shop doorways identifying the brand of clothing a person wears and of remote control spy planes relaying street images and details of car journeys straight to the police.

The recent government decision to install full-body scanners at major British airports has provoked strong opposition from campaign groups, which are planning to take legal action on the grounds that the scanners could breach privacy and anti-discrimination laws.

'We are concerned about the non-discriminatory use of scanners which can lead to racial profiling and stereotyping,' said Anita Coles from Liberty.

However, she said civil rights campaigners had been encouraged by signs that the British public had become 'much more concerned' about intrusion.

An opinion poll commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust in February showed that more than 80 per cent of Britons believe they have a right to know what information the government is holding on them.