Is Big Brother Watching (or Just Looking out for us)?

When CCTV systems were first introduced into our society there were plenty of scare stories flying around. A lot of people saw it as the ‘beginning of the end’ as far as a free society was concerned. There were also many comparisons made between Britain and ‘Oceania’, the fictional country in George Orwell’s ‘1984’.

However, putting things into perspective, most new schemes will spark a certain degree of apprehension amongst the general public. Remember all of the worries that were going around in the lead-up to the nationwide introduction of wheelie bins? There were all manner of terrible tales to be heard; ‘We’ll have rats everywhere!’, ‘There will be an increase in fly-tipping!’ and ‘Rubbish will be piled-up in our streets!’

The first British town to have a Closed Circuit Television system installed was Kings Lynn. However, it wasn’t long before these same cameras were appearing in all of our urban streets. A lot of this occurred during the 1990s and that certainly didn’t help matters... It was a decade that was already steeped in suspicion. Everywhere that you went, there was some new conspiracy story to be heard; UFO cover-ups, Princess Diana murder plots or secret government agencies. It certainly wasn’t known as ‘The Paranoid 90s’ for nothing! And that is probably why ‘The X Files’ was such an overnight success...

Of course, we now have CCTV cameras all around us; they are no longer only used in large cities. These days they are just about everywhere we go; inside the newsagents’, outside the greengrocers’ and opposite the butchers’. If you were to become concerned about their presence, then you simply would not leave your home. It is estimated that there are now over 4,200,000 CCTV cameras in place across Britain. And that is an enormous amount of all-seeing eyes to avoid!

So, why are these systems used? And should we be concerned? Well, first of all, there is absolutely no evidence to suggest any kind of ulterior motive behind the use of CCTV. It can be used for a number of different reasons, but none of these will cause us any harm. The main purpose of a Closed Circuit Television system is security. Many crimes are now solved with the help of CCTV and it can often be an invaluable form of evidence in a court case. You are less likely to be attacked in the street if assailants are aware of being watched and CCTV in car parks is actively helping to reduce car theft.

CCTV may appear to be intrusive, but it is only there for our own protection. This plain truth may even be a little disappointing for some people. If the possibility of shady governmental departments or secret plans for a ‘police state’ is taken out of the equation, then it will make everyday life seem remarkably dull and uneventful. And perhaps that is our greatest fear of all.

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