A new internet game is about to be launched which allows ‘super snooper’ players to plug into the nation’s CCTV cameras and report on members of the public committing crimes.
The ‘Internet Eyes’ service involves players scouring thousands of CCTV cameras installed in shops, businesses and town centres across Britain looking for law-breakers.
Players who help catch the most criminals each month will win cash prizes up to £1,000.
The Internet Eyes’ website will also feature a rogue’s gallery of the so-called ‘criminals’ along with a list of their offences and which internet user caught them.But civil rights campaigners today condemned the game, which launches in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, next month, and branded it ‘a snoopers paradise’.They claim nosey neighbours could snoop on homeowners putting the wrong rubbish in bins and even motorists guilty of the most minor misdemeanors.
WOW – I like in the UK, and even I didn’t think they would go quite this far.
Just goes to show how much we are prepared to let fiction become reality. Maybe Orwell was a Clairvoyant.
Orwell knew people’s nature was to control other people.
Hitler and Stalin tapped into this nature to build an empire.
Once a society crosses this bridge, it can never go back (unless a war does a hard reset).
An example of this fractal is the sexual puritanism that has existen in America for almost 400 years.
People love to control people.
Orwell was writing about his experience in the British Propaganda Unit during WWII. Not the future and not about Russia or Germany.
West usefully confirms that Basic English influenced the creation of Newspeak in 1984; that wartime censorship inspired the portrayal of Winston Smith’s work; that Senate House, the headquarters of the Ministry of Information (which controlled censorship), was the physical model for the Ministry of Truth; and that its chief, Brendan Bracken, known as “BB,” was the forerunner of Big Brother.
Well this does make sense. We write about what we know, not what we don’t. Like in the US, I think the greatest threat comes from within.
Which is why I get nervous with all these ‘total security’ types.
So, the DU whiners are against having a neighborhood watch program, too. Let’s protect the privacy rights of common thieves.
Tell that to my neighbor down the street – who thanked me when I spotted a couple of gangbangers climbing her back fence while I was driving to town.
I called 911 and a deputy grabbed them before they finished breaking into her home.
Poor kids. Their privacy was all violated.
Just had a thought. What if I used a UK proxy server to get access and watch someone, either a personal residence, or a business?
I’m sure the cameras around some areas are not available, due to paparazzi, or other concerns.
If we have this here I be rich I say 🙂
FUCK!!! these pricks have found a way to make all this information usable.Its the end of the world as we know it.
I wonder how long it will be before some politician is caught with his pants down on You Tube.
If you can view the video, you can record it.
If you can record it, you can upload it.
If you can upload it, millions will see it.
This program won’t be there long.
This proposal makes the data collected by these cameras less secure by opening them up to the public. I’ve noticed several people commenting that this seems to fly in the face of the Data Protection Act.
WOW. Police State Industrial Complex.
Snitches get stitches. Cameras get bullet proof cases.
One question what happens when everyone is broke and cant pay their fines and the prisons are over crowded and Australia and Alaska are out of space?
#6 keaneo,
so you would submit yourself to 24hr observation by the servents of the state?
You are happy to have your neighbors watch your every move?
If you performed a sex act that your neighbors found obscene, you would happily be arrested and put in jail to protect your neighbor’s sensibilities?
Since you’ve already agreeded to this, by the intent of your email, we should make a test article of you?
Of course your answer is that “I don’t do anything illegal.”.
We’ll let your neighbors decide that won’t we?
In the US, all kinds of things have been illegal.
Birthcontrol
Porn
Beer, wine, etc.
Words that contradict the government (Alien and Sedition Act)
Voting while being “black” or a woman
I’m sure the learned members of DU can list more.
I would totally sign up for this but you have to be 18 to sign up and you also have to give out your address and phone number.
Way better than Halo3 in mom’s basement. Cool!
CCTV cameras are in the US as well. Atlanta has been putting up CCTV cameras all over the place. You can see them hanging off of street lights or telephone poles. They have a flashing blue light to let you know that they are there. The City Council is going to vote on adding 6 cameras to Piedmont Park.
I call BS. If you go to the web site one of the things it list that you can monitor the cameras for is “spooky ghosts” One of the prizes is SMS message time. It looks like a scam to get cell phone numbers so that they can spam you with SMS or tack on bogus charges.
I love the idea of getting the PEOPLE to help with the jobs that NEED to be done.
Problems come when you use them for personal USE. Such as watching your Ex-spouse/boy friend. Tracking other people..
Problems I see..
To many will be watching the channels whitch there FAVORITE movie/music artists hang out.
CRAPPY cameras without options to see in DARK.
PRIVACY
This the the UK’s solution to unemployment.
Cursor_
I am a privacy paranoid, I hate Google like the plague, but the more I think about the British surveillance system, the less I have a problem with it. Those cameras are watching over STREETS. I never expected any privacy on the streets.
And I am very suspicious of the types who bring up issues about invasion of sex life and private habits. You’d have to be having sex on the street to be concerned with that. Clearly a dishonest claim due to the lack of legitimate argumentation.
I don’t like the “rogue’s gallery of the so-called criminals.” That part is an awful idea.
This is great. I would signup for a system like this in the US; we can reduce the police force and reduce crime at the same time.
On the Mexican border; we can convert this into a FPS!!
When they signed the Patriot Act, you said “No problem, I’m a patriot!”
When they tapped your phone to listen to your, and your 16 y.o. daughter’s, conversations, you said “No problem, I have nothing to hide!”
When your neighbor, who never liked the look of you because you are too [black | brown | yellow | white | Liberal | Conservative | sissy | butch | fat | skinny | stoopid | lazy | poor | rich | loud | disinterested | patriotic | fashionable | ugly | smart | whatever] saw you accidently bump into someone, and reported that you had assulted them, then please come to me when you have $20,000 in legal fees so I can cry you a tear.
When I want to be safe, I move to a safe neighborhood.
Expect it to come to your neighborhood soon.
Wouldn’t the CCTVs be put to better use by selling packages to tourists where the Home Office could record your travels while in the UK and once your trip is over you get a commemorative DVD.
No need to bring your camera or video camera and possibly miss moments while your bust filming, big brother is there to lend a hand…