It never fails – you get up in the morning, determined to do some real work, only to discover someone has left something unpleasant on your doorstep that needs to be cleaned up.

The mess in this case is a “study” by an organisation called Big Brother Watch into the “explosion” in CCTV cameras in this country. It used Freedom of Information Act requests to ask, how many CCTV cameras are controlled by local authorities.

The conclusion? There are “at least 59,753 CCTV cameras controlled by 418 local authorities in Britain, up from 21,000 in 1999”.

The figure is questionable as the CCTV User Group’s own estimates for public space CCTV cameras in the UK is closer to 35,000. And BBW includes 3,376 cameras which are classified as “internal” as opposed to public facing CCTV cameras.

It’s also not known how many of the cameras that councils reported are ones they monitor on a third-party contract basis – ie, the council monitors them but doesn’t own them. Also, not all cameras are used for crime prevention purposes, so some councils may include those cameras in their reported numbers and others may not. Did all councils use the same definitions in reporting their numbers?

The figures for individual councils are interesting and potentially useful but they have to be checked against the CCTV User Group’s own figures before we can attest to their veracity.

The overall figure is one that is certain to be used again and again by the mainstream media and foes of CCTV, but would probably be best filed under the headings of “anecdotal” and “apocryphal” estimates.

In defence

What can we say in defence of CCTV, if in fact these numbers are accurate? I suppose you’d have to say, guilty as charged.

Read more here.