CCTV abuses
CCTV cameras are used for observation. The question is, what do they observe? In Merseyside, UK, three municipal workers have been convicted for using a surveillance camera to peep into a woman’s flat, The Register reports.
Judge Gerald Clifton told the triumvirate: “To dismiss what was happening as laddish behaviour – something that the 21st-century, apparently, condones – is absurd. You have only to read the impact statements of the lady to realise the harrowing effect this has had on her. Her life has almost been ruined, her self-confidence entirely destroyed by the thought that prying male eyes have entered her flat.”
This is not unusual at all – the peeping, that is. Two Austrian hackers in Vienna intercepted a CCTV camera’s signal. The footage showed that the operator’s attention was clearly diverted from preventing crime:
Wie zwei Vertreter des Datenschutzvereins Quintessenz auf dem 22. Chaos Communication Congress (22C3) in Berlin erklärten, schwenkten die Beamten bei einem der am Wiener Schwedenplatz aufgezeichneten Filme von einem Fenster der benachbarten Häuser zum nächsten und zoomten ganz dicht ran. Man hätte recht genau beobachten können, “was sich hinter den Gardinen abspielt”, so Martin Slunksy
For all the technology, it’s still people operating the gear. Law-and-Order-types tend to forget this.