Loss of Privacy

The glare from the street lights is so bad in Sussex that its CCTV cannot capture criminals in the cameras.

Glare from lamps is causing such poor picture quality that individuals filmed committing a crime cannot be identified.

Despite admitting that street lighting can have a negative effect on crucial footage, police officers insist CCTV is still an “effective tool.”

Owner Stephen Berry, 52, said: “The council has been paying for years for these cameras, and when it actually comes to any use, they prove to be of no use whatsoever.

“The picture quality was not up to the job. The high-street lights were blurring the image.

“At the end of the day you would like to see the vandals brought to book over this issue – to at least be prosecuted. It is very frustrating.”

Turning off the street lights is not an option since darkness also interferes with CCTV images. It’s evident that the cameras are of poor quality since other, more expensive cameras do not suffer these problems.

Samurai is designed to issue alerts when it detects behaviour that differs from the norm, and adjusts its reasoning based on feedback. So an operator might reassure the system that the person with a mop appearing to loiter in a busy thoroughfare is no threat. When another person with a mop exhibits similar behaviour, it will remember that this is not a situation that needs flagging up.

On this week’s episode of Tonight, they will be discussing the use of CCTV as a cash cow.

As the number of CCTV cameras in the UK rises unchallenged and unregulated, Morland Sanders investigates the new ways they are being used to pay for themselves.

He reveals that more councils than ever are training their cameras on motorists, generating thousands in fines from traffic offences. While on victim of a violent mugging asks why her attacker was not caught despite the presence of several cameras.

UK police are planning on using unmanned spy drones to patrol the British skies in an effort to track more crime. The same type of drones that were used in Afghanistan will now be used to catch fly-tippers and anti-social drivers.

Documents from the South Coast Partnership, a Home Office-backed project in which Kent police and others are developing a national drone plan with BAE, have been obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act.

They reveal the partnership intends to begin using the drones in time for the 2012 Olympics. They also indicate that police claims that the technology will be used for maritime surveillance fall well short of their intended use – which could span a range of police activity – and that officers have talked about selling the surveillance data to private companies. A prototype drone equipped with high-powered cameras and sensors is set to take to the skies for test flights later this year.

The drones have failed to find Osama bin Laden, but it’s good to know that they can find fly-tippers and anti-social drivers. You absolutely would never be able to find the latter two without regular police work. If these are the same type of drones that the Taliban snooped upon, it will be interesting, and entertaining, to see what happens with drones used on the British yobs.

The UK has been floating the idea of using drones to control society since, at least, 2007 in an effect to stir up fear so that, when they are mass produced, the general public will want them. Remember, whenever you spend money on gadgets instead of real people to walk the streets, crime will only get worse.

From Russia Today,

Police have learned that CCTV cameras all across Moscow streamed prerecorded pictures, while the company servicing them received more than a million dollars in payments.

“From May to September 2009 CCTV cameras in several districts of Moscow streamed pre-recorded pictures instead of real-time video,”

The company, StroyMontageService, has been accused of security fraud. Police have detained its director, Dmitry Kudryavtsev, who denies all charges saying the scandal is an attempt by his rivals to squeeze him out of the market.