Surveillance Cameras in U.S. Cities
From EPIC:
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has requested more than $2 billion to finance grants to state and local governments for homeland security needs. Some of this money is being used by state and local governments to create networks of surveillance cameras to watch over the public in the streets, shopping centers, at airports and more. However, studies have found that such surveillance systems have little effect on crime, and that it is more effective to place more officers on the streets and improve lighting in high-crime areas. There are significant concerns about citizens’ privacy rights and misuse or abuse of the system. A professor at the University of Nevada at Reno has alleged that the university used a homeland security camera system to surreptitiously watch him after he filed a complaint alleging that the university abused its research animals. Also, British studies have found there is a significant danger of racial discrimination and stereotyping by those monitoring the cameras.
T. • May 16, 2005 10:09 AM
“Networks” of surveillance cameras? This is scary. I understand collecting evidence and having guards monitor camera systems, but with the recent proposals of including biometric data mandatory in identification documents, imagine they hook up all cameras to a biometric database containing facial features (soon available from passports and drivers licenses). Complete profiling of the general public will become possible. Looks like a totalitarian surveillance tool to me.
With unencrypted RFID tags in IDs, even businesses can easily track their customers this way. Actually, they could connect name and face when somebody uses their credit card and store it in a database to track his behaviour using their surveillance cameras, too. But this would ‘just’ work for customers.