Television is bloody awful, filled with make-over shows and Big Brother spin offs, but a London council's version of reality TV is being criticised by civil rights groups. The council will let Shoreditch residents watch the output from CCTV and grass up anyone acting suspiciously.

The project will enable Shoreditch residents to compare suspicious characters with an on-screen "rogue's gallery" from their living-room.

Viewers can then alert police to anyone in breach of an anti-social behaviour order (Asbo) or committing a crime.

[...]

Atul Hatwal, strategy director of the Shoreditch Digital Bridge, said [...] "The scheme aims to empower members of the local community to support police in tackling crime and supporting each other in making Shoreditch a safer place,"

Similar, low tech, versions of this have been tried elsewhere; China and the Soviet Union for example.

frogoth

I'm lost

January 2006

JAN 10, 2006 07:58 AM

Hmm...

OK, so it's not good to encourage people to spy on each other, but in Russia/China/Nazi Germany etc the point was to root out people with ideological ideals encouraging freedom of speech etc.

The point of this is to stop troublemakers ruining other peoples' lives. And surely it's everyone's duty to try and make their community a safe place to live?

Could it encourage vigilantism? Possibly I suppose, but surely the point is that it enables these people to resolve their issues by working with the authorities, rather than taking a cricket bat to them. That's a good thing, isn't it?

Still, on the whole, sounds like a rather creepy scheme, that will probably prove to be a waste of time and money, much like ASBOs. I feel slightly uneasy about the whole thing...

PointBlank

New York, NY

November 2004

JAN 10, 2006 08:02 AM

Stop Snitching.

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