As seen on CCTV

Published on Sunday 5 November 2006 00:52

A DAY in the life of Jeremy Watson proves it is almost impossible to escape the unblinking eye of the 'surveillance state'

JUST after 8am in the most spied- upon nation in the world and I am approaching Tollcross and a busy crossroads close to the centre of Edinburgh. Any second now and I'll be able to wave a cheery good morning to the boys and girls manning the CCTV centre in the bowels of the City Chambers.

This is where "official surveillance" begins, in the shape of a CCTV camera, as I make my way by car into Edinburgh for a day's work. I'm one of the lucky ones; those who live on the city's wealthier south side.

If I lived in the less salubrious districts of Pilton, Muirhouse or Wester Hailes - where situations requiring police attention are more likely to kick off - I would have been spotted getting into my vehicle. Morningside has none of the city's 130 surveillance cameras, whereas Wester Hailes has 15. If I'd taken the bus, my bleary visage would already have been captured and fed into a hard-drive for later retrieval if necessary.

One thing is already becoming clear about the "surveillance state". Some of us are more spied upon than others.

But once in the city centre zone there is no escape as I grind my way towards my office at Holyrood. Camera 128 at Greyfriars will put me in the frame with the famous statue of Bobby. As I cut down Infirmary Street, No 127 picks me up until I come into view of No 121 on the Cowgate. As I emerge on to Holyrood Road, it will be seconds before the cameras guarding the approaches to the Scottish Parliament building start taking an interest. As I turn into the Scotland on Sunday office's underground car park, the company's own CCTV system welcomes me in.

That is at least six sets of surveillance cameras between having my breakfast and sitting down at my desk. And those are only the ones I know about. If I'd stopped for petrol, money, or even a newspaper, the chances are that someone, somewhere would have been watching. Even that's not everything giving away my presence. In my pocket is my mobile phone. Should the law enforcement agencies want to find me, they could pinpoint my location to within a few hundred metres thanks to the signals it is sending out.

Most of us have probably become oblivious to the cold metal boxes imperiously staring down from above. If they swivel and tilt it is usually in well-oiled silence. But their growth has been so rapid that last week the government's Information Commissioner felt the need to draw the nation's attention to what he termed the "surveillance society".

With CCTV, retail analysis of buying habits, recording of travel movements and mobile phone tracking all on the increase, Richard Thomas warned that excessive surveillance was now creating a "climate of suspicion". Thomas believes clear lines need to be drawn about the extent to which government agencies and businesses can obtain and save information about people's movements and purchases.

"Two years ago, I warned that we were in danger of sleepwalking into a surveillance society," Thomas said. "Today, I fear that we are in fact waking up to a surveillance society that is already all around us."

This warning accompanied a report by campaign group Privacy International, which surveyed the growth of surveillance in 37 countries. Alarmingly for civil rights groups, it identified Britain, along with Russia, China, Malaysia and Singapore, as countries practising "endemic" surveillance against individual citizens.

Surveillance cameras are a case in point. Throughout the UK, there are now 4.2 million cameras, one for every 14 citizens. That equates to 20% of the world's surveillance cameras in a country that only covers 0.2% of the global land mass.

It is estimated that the average Londoner is now caught around 300 times every day with more than 1,800 cameras watching train stations alone. In other cities such as Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen, the total is likely to be around 100 times a day.

Mark Waterfall, who runs the joint council-police CCTV camera system covering the main towns in Fife, says the figures are unlikely to be exaggerated. "Somewhere like Edinburgh or Glasgow you will be on camera every time you walk down the street, go into a shop, stop for petrol or get on a bus. Rather than saying who has got CCTV systems, it is easier to ask who hasn't."

When I emerge from Scotland on Sunday for the short walk up to the City Chambers, my every step is clocked by CCTV. When I stop at a cash point I am under a camera's cool gaze. No 122 picks me up on Blair Street and hands me over to No 125, high on the side of a bank building opposite the Tron Kirk. It accompanies me as I turn into the City Chambers and head downstairs.

Just past the old cells with their wooden doors from the days the building was a courthouse is the council's 900,000 CCTV centre. In low-lighted gloom a team of council employees are on duty around the clock every day, to, as they say, help make the city a safer place. They sit at desks in front of a mind-boggling bank of 66 screens, monitoring traffic and crime hotspots. 10.45 on a Friday morning and a city doing its daytime business is spread out in front of the operators. On the corner of South Bridge, No 125 zooms in on two Japanese tourists looking bewildered as they consult a map. Seven cameras catch buses thundering along Princes Street beside overcrowded pavements.

At night, other cameras, trained on known trouble spots outside pubs and clubs, come into their own. In the editing suite just off the camera room, Tony, one of the senior CCTV operatives, replays an incident where a drunken man tries to make his way home along Princes Street - in a motorised wheelchair. Police are alerted and come to his rescue after he has crashed into a traffic bollard. In another incident, a black youth is chased along the street by a posse of young, white attackers led by a teenage girl.

Helping the law enforcers is high on the team's priority list. When they spot "abnormal" behaviour they have instant access to police radio systems and can both direct officers towards incidents and keep the cameras rolling while they get there. Even if a suspect has fled the scene, the CCTV evidence can be used in court. Under normal circumstances, live footage is scrapped after a week and time-lapse film, taken every few seconds, after a month. When required for evidence, however, the tapes can be kept for much longer periods.

Councillors insist that the demand is for more cameras, not fewer. Sheila Gilmore, the executive member for Community Safety and Housing, said: "Surveys tell us that most people feel safer if they know that CCTV cameras are there. The cameras are an important tool in combating crime and anti-social behaviour and were effective, in the past year, in securing around 1,200 arrests."

If Edinburgh appears to be well-endowed with cameras, then it is put firmly into the shade by Glasgow's 400. Scotland's largest city has embraced the surveillance society with a vengeance. To get there I must first run the gauntlet of cameras throughout Edinburgh city centre - at least six of the official variety - out to the huge Gyle shopping complex on the western outskirts.

I stop there for a lunchtime sandwich and drive into a CCTV-protected fortress. This is a private system run by the shopping centre's owners and little gets by them. At least two cameras are trained on every entrance and others look out over the vast car park. Inside, the main mall has cameras along its length. Just minutes after entering, our photographer is approached by a security man who informs him that he has been spotted by CCTV camera operators and is ordered not to take photographs.

Handing over my debit card to buy sandwiches, I reflect on the fact that my purchase of chicken salad on brown bread and a slice of carrot cake will be electronically logged as part of consumer buying pattern analysis. Those around me with supermarket loyalty cards have willingly volunteered a wealth of detail about their tastes, their spending and their lifestyle. They should expect to be targeted with highly-tailored special offers any time soon.

Leaving "Fortress" Gyle behind, I head west on the M8 towards Glasgow, where, until recently, the Scottish Human Rights Centre was based. After more than 20 years in existence, it was closed last December when local authority funding ran out.

On the way there I will be captured by the 18 cameras strung out on tall metal poles along the motorway between Edinburgh and Glasgow by Road Network Scotland, part of a Scottish Executive agency which monitors traffic flows along the central belt's main artery.

Senior police officers in Scotland are gradually introducing an automated number plate recognition system in which a mobile camera can be hooked up to an existing CCTV system and alert operators if a target passes by.

Coming off the M8 at Junction 15, Glasgow Cathedral, I move into the range of Glasgow council's CCTV operators. On the short journey to the Buchanan Centre, at least four cameras bear silent witness to my progress. I pass the statue of Donald Dewar and wonder whether the first First Minister would have approved of the round-the-clock intrusion into the lives of his fellow Glaswegians.

The city's council also emphasises the role its network of cameras plays in fighting crime and anti-social behaviour, but civil rights campaigners claim this does not tell the whole story.

John Scott, a human rights lawyer and former chairman of the Human Rights Centre, said: "CCTV does not do everything its supporters claim it to do in terms of fighting crime. It is not a deterrent, it just shifts crime away to other areas where there are not as many cameras. It might capture a drunk fighting in Sauchiehall Street, but anyone planning anything serious will do it well out of sight."

The proliferation of privately-operated systems has also brought more opportunity for abuse, Scott said. "CCTV operators have been fined and imprisoned for blackmail. Others have been caught getting close-ups on women or following them down the street."

By the time I am back in Edinburgh from a routine trip to Glasgow, I have been under surveillance by at least 77 CCTV cameras since leaving home after breakfast. It would have been many more if I had walked or driven around either city centre. Details of my lifestyle have been collected by a bank, a retailer and a petrol station. My mobile phone provider Orange confirmed that it was "obliged" to provide communications data - including location information - to law enforcement agencies, "when an appropriate request is made under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act".

Scott believes Commissioner Thomas is right to sound the alarm. "We are sleepwalking into a surveillance society and the gradual loss of freedom is something we should all regret. One of the main arguments for cameras is that if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. That same argument can be applied to cameras in your living room." The danger is, it seems, that no one is watching the watchers.

Every breath you take, every move you make, they'll be watching you

CCTV

More than 4.2 million cameras are in use in Britain - one for every 14 people - and the number is expected to increase by at least 50% over the next five years. Sophisticated new software will allow the cameras to detect "behavioural oddities" on the streets and automatically alert operators with many screens to monitor.

They will recognise groups of people, or those walking strangely. Some systems - one is currently on trial in Middlesbrough - will allow operators to verbally reprimand "offenders" such as litter louts.

WIRELESS CCTV

The next generation of camera being developed to combat claims that fixed units merely shift crime elsewhere. Wireless systems, initially in police mobile vans, but eventually in airborne drones, will be used in areas where it is difficult to run fibre-optic cables. They can also be moved quickly into new trouble spots. Westminster Council in London is currently working with systems supplier Cisco on a wireless CCTV network across Soho, where narrow streets and cramped alleys prevent fixed cameras from operating successfully.

MOBILE PHONES

With millions in use daily, they are a mobile tracking system. When switched on, mobile phones communicate with the network to enable an operator to route calls quickly and efficiently to and from its customers. This also enables law enforcement agencies, under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, to ask phone networks such as O2 or Orange to help them trace where calls have been made or monitor the movement of a phone through base station areas. The companies insist that no data regarding its customers would be disclosed without the appropriate legislative authority.

STORE CARDS

You may think it is a simple purchase using a convenient form of credit. To the store, it is valuable information on customer tastes, preferences and spending habits. Even filling in the application form yields a wealth of information, usually including mobile phone numbers and e-mail addresses so the marketing department can get to work and target you at home.

AUTOMATED NUMBER PLATE RECOGNITION

Soon to be rolled out in Scotland, ANPR allows a mobile camera to record thousands of licence plates as they move past every hour. Will be used initially to keep track of sex offenders on the official Violent and Sex Offenders' Register but could be turned on to drug traffickers, suspected terrorists and banned and unlicensed drivers. Eventually, face recognition systems will be possible so that "known" faces can be fed into the network. Civil liberties groups are wary as data can be stored for up to two years.