CCTV is always presented as being poor quality on the news - even public CCTV… I’ve always wondered if this is a deliberate decision. Having some time ago seen the inside of a city’s CCTV centre and watching them proudly zoom in to read someone’s watch, I know how good some of it can be. And that was a camera situated on the top of a tall building… I doubt it’s got any worse in the intervening years.
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My Asda has had this for a good few years.
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Hate these things. Holding up my can of monster on a morning looking like Dobby. My precioussssss!
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You’d be surprised how many places have cameras in places you wouldn’t expect.
E.g. McDonalds in the DriveThru that screen you order at? Yep live feed and takes a picture when the order is stored, same for the majority of fast food restaurants with drive thrus including starbucks/costa I believe.
I don’t see an issue as long as I don’t wake up and my mug isn’t on a billboard somewhere 
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Every city will differ, and sometimes it can be really good quality but from my experience it’s not the norm. There absolutely will be excellent CCTV but for most cities it will be a wildly expensive venture to have ultra high quality images recording constantly. For most scenarios, basic imaging suffices.
As for what you see on the news, honestly most of that is private/third party images. It’s not often public CCTV used.
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This is what I was going to add, but thought I would finish scrolling the comments first to avoid duplication 
Many ATMs have camera fitted to them to record people using them. Difference there though, is that there is no VDU (visual display unit) to show the user that they are being recorded 
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I don’t think the world is ready for my mug on a billboard 
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Especially in those black taxi’s that look just like the real thing 
Someone been reading 1984?
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The one I control at a weekend when I’m at work can zoom through someone’s car window and see what websites they’re using on a smartphone.
Note - I don’t use it for this purpose 
just tested it’s capabilities with a college.
I don’t think that’s any better!
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You want your mug on a dashboard?
Thankfully your opinion about what I used it for doesn’t affect me in the slightest. Systems have to be tested and the only way to do that without encroaching on some randoms privacy, was with a willing college.
colleague*
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I mean, they’re not wrong. We’re the most heavily surveilled non-authoritarian country in the world. London is more watched than some places in China. More than a post 911 New York is. It’s maddening.
The cameras themselves and what their purpose was for isn’t much of the problem. But rather what can now be done with the data and how it can be exploited. The threat of big brother isn’t some Orwellian fantasy we’re at risk of. It’s already here in this country and has been for some time. None of the main political entities really appose it or the authoritarian uses it may have in the future, and has now. Going by what history teaches us, we’re long past the point of no return, so if you don’t like it, the only solution really is to leave imo.
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My opinion should concern you so much that you’re ready to confess to the next person of importance that you see.
(I don’t care what you do, I was meaning that you said college and not colleague)
I thought I’d gone incorrectly with that word sod it, can stay like that 
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Most of it isn’t government or authority. It’s private cameras. You really can’t be followed easily in London, especially outside of any town centres.
(Trust me I know it’s hard to believe but this is my daily bread and butter at work and it was surprising even for me - number of cameras means shockingly little if there’s no connection/integration)
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All the Edward Snowden stuff that came about strongly implied there is, and that it was worse in our country than in the US. I’m not speaking just of CCTV systems, which may or may not be involved.
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I don’t know what information you’ve been looking at (I can’t refute it) but when it comes to policing at the very least, it’s not in any way integrated. I have three cameras I can view at any one time and the majority of boroughs use local council control rooms for CCTV that is barely covering anything outside of the main centres. I’d say a good 60% of times I ask if there are cameras in a given location it’s a no.
I know it’s not particularly popular/drummed into us that we are incredible surveilled but we really aren’t. At least as I mention without integration.
Crimes of very serious nature still continue to happen in London. People go missing in London. It requires individual requests to individual stores and personal request for (say) ring doorbell footage to even get a vague idea where someone might have gone if you wan to follow them down a street in the middle of our capital city.
Short of someone recognising a face, it’s not tracked. It’s not smart. We don’t have a database of your facial features.
Sorry to be the one to put the snuffer on the view that it’s all a go-go with the technology used by authorities.
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