A businessman on holiday in Spain was able to alert police of a raid on his home in the UK because he’d invested in an expensive net-connected digital CCTV system. Engineering boss John Ellison, 52, watched the attack on his Lancaster home unfold on a laptop PC he’d taken on holiday with him to Malaga, Spain.
Councils across the UK are supplying householders with covert CCTV cameras so that they can amass evidence against nuisance neighbours. The devices are so small they can be hidden in pot plants or door frames and provide 24-hour surveillance to capture evidence of vandalism, threatening behaviour or abuse.
Councils in London, West Yorkshire, Northumberland and Dundee have introduced the schemes to help to secure antisocial behaviour orders, injunctions and criminal convictions. They follow government demands that local authorities crack down on antisocial behaviour.
A combination of newly installed CCTV cameras into fire engines, new powers protecting emergency workers and efforts to engage with youngsters in communities have led to a dramatic fall in the number of attacks on firefighters.
Three CCTV cameras were installed at the end of last year after figures revealed firefighters attempting to put out blazes and save lives were increasingly being targeted by armed thugs.
When you monitor your home or office with CCTV surveillance, it’s like you have an entire television network devoted to the safety of your home. CCTV broadcasts your security surveillance on a private network, but unlike broadcast television, all components within your network are connected through cables and wires.
Already popular in large public places where security is heightened, such as at airports or casinos, CCTV systems are becoming more and more widely used in private home settings as well.
The loss of employee privacy rights in the workplace is a growing concern among employees, lawyers, and civil libertarian groups. Although employers in banks, telecommunications, securities exchange, in hi-tech industries, and in other workplaces justify using video surveillance in the workplace to monitor employee behavior to chiefly promote safety, improve productivity, and stop theft, protecting employee privacy must be a top concern.
A new magazine called Benchmark has just been launched, which is dedicating itself to establishing a performance index for electronic surveillance products and solutions.
Benchmark are looking to create this index by group-testing various CCTV components and technologies, and by conducting on-site assessments of CCTV systems. The aim is to create an index that is quick and easy for readers to check performance data on CCTV products and components.
Since the July 7th London bombings, CCTV security systems across the world have been examined with greater scrutiny and with greater expectations for reducing crime.
Although not a panacea for preventing crime, many CCTV systems have been successful at reducing some types of crimes like property crime, for acting as a deterrent in car parks or in other public places, and for making citizens feel safer. However, the results are mixed when addressing violent crimes and when the crimes involve alcohol.
Having installed a digital CCTV system in a primary school in Bradford for security reasons, the staff soon realised that they could use the CCTV footage to analyse classroom practice and performance of both students and teachers.
"The beauty of using CCTV as a teaching aid in addition to using it for security reasons is that the CCTV cameras are already there, so there’s no extra equipment or set-up time required," says Peter Steele, the headteacher.
The Home Office has published a series of 5 short practical guides through its crime reduction website, to help businesses and organisations tackle vandalism and criminal damage.
Each guide is short and snappy at only 4 pages long, and addresses practical issues, illustrating its points with pen picture case studies.
The titles of the guides are:
When you are next walking through any of London’s Underground stations, take a moment to scan your eyes upwards to the ceiling and you shall see them. Some will be obvious in their rectangular white housing, others disguised behind black domes.
There are more than 6,000 CCTV cameras across London’s Tube network, which transport bosses say will rise to 12,000 over the next five years.