Chicago Welcomes CCTV Surveillance
In an attempt to cut down on crime, Chicago’s mayor is welcoming the increased installation and use of CCTV cameras in the city. The Chicago Sun-Times reports:
Mayor Daley has argued that security and terrorism won’t be an issue if his Olympic dreams come true because, by 2016, there will be a surveillance camera on every street corner in Chicago.
But has Chicago learned from the UK?
According to Privacy International, Britain is an “endemic surveillance society”, falling behind Malaysia, China, and Russia for government surveillance.
The British are one of the most watched in the world — with 4.2 million CCTV cameras, or about one for every 14 people.
It appears that Chicago has learned very little from the UK. With over four million CCTV cameras, Britain should be a relatively crime-free society. However, as Guardian.co.uk reports, surveillance has done little to prevent crime in the UK:
Massive investment in CCTV cameras to prevent crime in the UK has failed to have a significant impact, despite billions of pounds spent on the new technology, a senior police officer piloting a new database has warned. Only 3% of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images, despite the fact that Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe.
Canada, along with Greece and Romania, has been labelled as having some of the best privacy records surveyed by Privacy International.
For example, the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia has released Public Surveillance System Privacy Guidelines to assist public bodies with the decision to collect and use information collected from electronic surveillance. This set of guidelines was released back in January of 2001.
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