Via Timmy and the Englishman, this truly hideous little idea discussed in the Times and with some relish here. From the Times piece:
Britain, already one of the most snooped-upon nations on Earth, is about to become a nation of snoopers.
A network of citizen crimewatchers will be given the chance of winning up to £1,000 by monitoring CCTV security cameras over the internet.
The cameras’ owners will pay a fee to have users watch the footage. The scheme, Internet Eyes, is being promoted as a game and is expected to go “live” next month with a test run in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Subscribers will be able to register free and will be given up to four cameras to monitor.
Jesus, what have we turned into? There are those who point out that following the Nazi invasion of France, Frenchmen were willingly reporting their neighbours to the Gestapo. Old scores were settled. Are we so very different? It would seem not.
Let’s be clear here, crime is not a “game”, despite what these people might assert. It is rather more serious than that.
This, from the folks at TFTS:
The internet is about to get a new reality game, known as Internet Eyes, that already has civil rights groups up in arms on account of the fact that you’ll be cast as a ‘remote snooper’ who’ll get paid cash for spotting real crimes via CCTV cameras installed in shops and shopping centres through out the UK.
A reality game. So, the UK population having been softened up by the truly egregious Big Brother are now ripe for spying on each other. Yes, it will have civil rights groups up in arms and quite rightly so. It is an outrageous invasion of privacy. It is one thing for a shop keeper to use CCTV to monitor his premises – it is entirely another to have some peeping Tom lurking on the Internet watching your movements. Movements that are none of their damned business.
Civil rights groups, as you’d except, aren’t in the least bit happy and claim that Internet Eyes will ‘encourage people to spy and snitch on each other’ which, pinch me if I’m wrong, is the whole premise of the game, isn’t it? (10 points there for stating the bleeding obvious).
No, deduct 10 points because they have had to point out the bleedin’ obvious and that people are so historically ignorant, they cannot see what is wrong with this vile scheme. This is what happens when a generation grows up having no contemporaneous experience of what systematic spying on each other is like. People who have little or no grasp of recent European history. I remember the Soviet bloc. I remember talking to people who lived there. Routine spying on the innocent is to be reviled by any right thinking person. This scheme is not designed to bring out the very best in people – despite the fluffy propaganda, it is cynically designed to bring out the very worst. And bring out the very worst, it will.
While I tend to have a distaste for CCTV generally, I can accept that in certain circumstances, it will prove useful. Shopkeepers monitoring their premises for shoplifting, for example. Car parks that are out of sight and may be prone to vandalism and theft. However, the footage should only be available to the premises owner and the law enforcement agencies, not any Tom, Dick or Harry who think it is all a game and wish to satisfy their voyeuristic tendencies.
We welcome your thoughts? Are you a potential Internet Eyes remote snooper in the making? Let us know.
Sure. Over my dead body. This is a dreadful scheme that is designed to bring out the absolute worst in the curtain twitching, petty, interfering little snitch who is rightly despised and hated by any decent human being.
Someone has, indeed, said as much. Step forward Jan Burchell
I think what you are doing is appalling and I can see no way this application can cut crime and is a cynical attempt to make money from the public you should be closed down!
I’m not sure that Jan has fully grasped who is running this scheme, but the sentiment is sound – apart from wanting to close down TFTS.
The author, Andrew Tingle responds with the usual silly question that has been used to justify authoritarian behaviour so many times before, that it is in danger of becoming a logical fallacy – the “if it happened to you” canard.
Interestingly, should one of these remote snoopers spot a crime where, say, and for argument’s sake, you were the victim, and that brought the perpetrator to justice, would you still be opposed?
I don’t know what Jan thinks, but my opposition remains absolute. I do not want these people snooping on me at all and I’ll accept the consequential risks. Law enforcement is for the police, not an army of snitches, sneaks, curtain twitchers, busybodies and spies.
I’ve said it before, but it seems I will have to keep saying it because there are some incredibly dense people out there who do not understand the principles of civil liberties and why they are so important. I would sooner take my chances in the jungle and be free than live confined and safe in a gilded cage.
If I discover that a shop is using this system, I will not enter the premises.
By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes… again.