Lobby group Big Brother Watch releases CCTV report

18 Dec 09

Big Brother Watch is “the new campaign fighting intrusions on privacy and protecting liberties”.

The main findings in its report are:

• There are currently at least 59,753 CCTV cameras controlled by 418 local authorities in Britain, up from 21,000 in 1999

• This equates to 1 council owned CCTV camera for every 1000 people in the country

• Portsmouth and Nottinghamshire Councils are in control of the most CCTV cameras with 1,454 each

• Residents in the Outer Hebrides are the most watched people in the UK with 8.3 CCTV cameras controlled by the council for every 1000 people. Portsmouth has the second highest number of CCTV cameras per 1000 people with 7.8

• The council controlling the highest number of CCTV cameras in Scotland is Fife with 1350 cameras

• The council in Wales controlling the highest number of CCTV cameras is Swansea with 326 cameras

• The council controlling the highest number of CCTV cameras in Northern Ireland is Belfast with 400 cameras

• The total number of CCTV cameras controlled by councils in London is 8,122, which equals 1.2 CCTV cameras for every 1000 people living in the capital. Wandsworth is the most watched borough in London with 1113 CCTV cameras, or 4.3 cameras for every 1000 residents.

A statement from the group says: “When a similar study was conducted 10 years ago, the authors found there were approximately 21,000 cameras in just 86 per cent of local authorities; which equates to a rise of 279 per cent in under a decade.

“‘Big Brother Is Watching’ is the first report by Big Brother Watch, bringing together the various arguments against CCTV and placing them alongside a definitive list of the number of CCTV cameras operated by Britain’s 428 local authorities, to establish the full extent of Britain’s local authority controlled surveillance.”

Alex Deane, director of Big Brother Watch, said: “Local councils across Britain are creating enormous networks of CCTV surveillance at great expense, but the evidence for the ability of CCTV to deter or solve crimes is sketchy at best.

“The quality of footage is frequently too poor to be used in courts, the cameras are often turned off to save money and control rooms are rarely manned 24-hours-a-day.

“With crime on the increase, it is understandable that some people want more CCTV, but we would all feel safer with more police on the beat, there would be fewer crimes and those crimes that do occur would be solved faster.”

Download the full report here.

Big Brother Watch is a new campaign from the founders of the TaxPayers’ Alliance – a pressure group which campaigns for lower taxes. The figures in the new report are derived from Freedom of Information requests, submitted to every council in the UK.

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