12:36pm Friday 19th June 2009
I SPENT a fascinating half hour or so the other day… when I was permitted to be a real-life Big Brother.
No, it wasn’t for a TV reality show, nor was it a performance of Orwell’s novel. And it certainly wasn’t supervising our kid Josh – my little bruv who’s famous for playing the comb on his teeth.
Instead, I was permitted into the inner sanctum of Wycombe District Council’s CCTV Control Room where dozens of cameras constantly watch over the area.
And I can tell you, it’s compelling live TV which is hard to tear your eyes away from. I’m such a nosey parker that when they throw me out of my present job, I think I’ll apply to become a CCTV operator because it looks like such fun.
However, I also sincerely believe it is potentially one of the most useful and under-rated jobs in the district.
CCTV has its critics, but it is a hugely-important tool in modern-day life and, as long as the service is well supervised, then it does not threaten any human rights.
In fact, it should protect your human rights as an individual to walk safely along the streets of our town centres.
I didn’t particularly need evidence to show the effectiveness of the camera system, but evidence came thick and fast as CCTV Operations Manager Chinda Virdee showed me edited tapes of various successes.
These included instances of how CCTV had caught villains stealing car stereos and how it had helped stop people being beaten up in the street.
In these days of modern technology, it would be a sin in my opinion to forego the opportunity of being able to detect and stop crime at the first available opportunity. Goodness knows how much trouble these cameras have averted.
If you’ve nothing to hide, then you’ve nothing to fear. I have no objection to being spotted on camera while I am strolling through High Wycombe, providing no one takes the mickey and carries out surveillance on my every move.
And I was assured safeguards exist to prevent, say, control room operators from spotting a pretty girl and then tracking her every move around town. Apparently, something like this has never been allowed to happen in all the years of CCTV in Wycombe, since it started in 1996. There are audit checks on a regular basis which include random viewing of tapes.
The service is also monitored by an unpaid lay panel which can inspect it at any given moment, and which I am reliably told constantly does, in order to ensure it is properly carrying out its public duty.
So here are a few facts and figures about Wycombe’s CCTV:
In my job as editor, I come across a fair bit of criticism about the principle of CCTV. Residents and councillors in some areas complain about the costs or the fact it displaces crime from town centres and into their neighbourhoods. Civil liberty advocates fear increased state and police interference and control.
Yet, remember this is a council and not a police service, so it has no real power apart from being able to call for assistance or to provide evidence of crime.
Call me naïve, but from what I could see on my visit, its sole raison d’etre is to help the public.
One film shown to me highlighted a couple of apparent ne’er-do-wells who were tracking an unknowing victim through the town, and there was every likelihood they were going to mug him.
The cameras tracked them pursuing him at a distance to an isolated area where he was about to walk through a tunnel.
Security guards were called to the scene and as soon as the ‘suspects’ saw them, they disappeared. The ‘victim’ walked on unsuspectingly, not knowing he had probably been rescued from a terrible ordeal.
I wonder how many of us have escaped a similar fate as a result of CCTV.
It’s literally a life-saver and to all civil liberty campaigners, I would say it’s against our civil liberties not to have this system watching over us.
The term Big Brother has been used disparagingly over the years to describe camera control rooms. Actually, it’s an unfair misnomer in Wycombe.
It’s a case of angels rather than fascist dictators with large moustaches watching over you here.
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