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Comment by citricsquid | Hacker News Reader

    First, jwerpy is right to point out the ubiquity of surveillance,
    not only in London but in most British cities.

Part myth, part over reaction. The majority of CCTV in the UK is privately owned (92%) and the government owned is relatively small in number: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance#United_Kingdo...

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This distinction only matters if the government can't subpoena private entities to hand over the footage whenever they want. (Note: I have no idea how easy it is for the government to obtain private CCTV footage in practice -- just pointing out that the fact that 92% of CCTV isn't operated by the government doesn't mean that it is not accessible to the government.)

I'd say the distinction still matters if a court and subpoena still needs to be involved. The distinction disappears when the police can get access to the footage without any probably suspicion.

This is one of the interesting things about CCTV in the UK. Not only is it owned by a myriad of entities but it's monitored by a myriad of entities too. Other than national networks for things like ANPR (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police-enforced_ANPR_in_the_UK) tying together people's movements through a town, into a nightclub, out onto a motorway, etc, would involve working with numerous organisations, including the local council, the owner of the nightclub, the county council, etc.

This lack of cohesion means that, currently, intrusions into privacy are hard to automate and such footage can only be collected together into a complete narrative with some serious effort on the part of the police.

(Bias disclaimer: I'm very much pro CCTV.)

> would involve working with numerous organisations

To elaborate: Which means about six months of red tape just to find which car park the guy went to after he left the club.

(Also pro-CCTV)

I'd be pro CCTV but it often seems an expensive boondoggle as the net effect is pretty slim.

As long as the government isn't paying for it, then what's the problem? Private CCTV is great: it's difficult to abuse by the government for mass surveillance, but can be subpoenaed after a crime's been committed so we still get the benefit in that regard, and at no cost to the tax payer.

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