Surveillance Cameras

The 25 cameras, almost triple the coverage of the 13 existing cameras which were already on Christchurch streets.

Last year the cameras helped with almost 80 arrests, located 27 missing people, seven witnesses to a homicide and helped identify and locate the suspect in a stabbing. Although those stats sound good, I still feel like we are giving up a little too much of our privacy to see these results.

I have been thinking about it for a while and the more I think about it the more it freaks me out that I am constantly being recorded during my day to day life. The key word in that sentence was “recorded”, I realise that these camera’s are in public places and that we are seen by random people all the time when walking around town and I’m fine with that. It’s the recording that unnerves me. I would be a lot happier if the camera’s watching me were doing just that, watching not recording me. It would be the same as any other random person on the street being able to see what I was doing.

This would still be advantageous to police, as they could have one officer watching multiple cameras, thus giving the police a greater presence in the community. The police officer viewing the camera feeds could keep mobile officers up to date to help stop crime on the streets.

One argument against this would be that evidence of crimes being committed would be lost. To this I suggest that the officer viewing live feeds should also be able to be used as eye witnesses for crimes in court, the same way any other officer would be able to if they were standing where the camera was when the crime was committed.

I would really like to hear your thoughts on this subject of Big Brother encroaching into our privacy. Do you mind being recorded? Do you think my idea of only allowing live feeds from the surveillance cameras is stupid? Have you got any other ideas? Hit those comment boxes people.