ESSAY ABOUT THE CCTV - gartagani

ESSAY ABOUT THE CCTV 


By Robert Diaz 

Word count: 1573 

"[A]n investigation that would be extended without limit to a meticulous and ever more 

analytical observation, a judgment that would at the same time be the constitution of a 

file that was never closed, the calculated leniency of a penalty that would be interlaced 

with the ruthless curiosity of an examination..." (1) Michel Foucault, Discipline and 

Punish . 

The video is more used than any other type of physical surveillance. 

Technology has brought benefits to our way of work and life. But these benefits 

have also carried out a cost. That is due to the ethics applied using human technologies 

and enhancements. Technology came first and legislation regulating it came later. 

Advocates argue that the quality of the way in which we live has been enhanced. 

Opponents argue that we have lost the very nature of humanity, our privacy. 

file:///C|/My%20Documents/uniedinburgh/postmodernism/essay.html (1 de 11) [13/03/02 3:51:56]


Postmodernity means in this case the Information Era. In those technologies, we 

included Artificial Intelligence, computers, telematics and video cameras (CCTV). It 

is interesting to isolate first the key features of the Jeremy Bentam’s Panopticon. 

After this first approach, we will consider the relation betwee this model and the rules 

of the CCTVs in the modern city and societies. 

- The Panopticon is a regulative dysotopia. 

- There is something sinister. 

- It is a way to internalise social rules on behalf of the citizen. An 

“anticipatory conformity” with those rules. 

In the original Bentham’s book he describes his invention and the effect of the 

permanent control as: “ You will please to observe, that though perhaps it is the most 

important point, that the persons to be inspected should always feel themselves as if 

under inspection, at least as standing a great chance of being so, yet it is not by any 

means the only one.(...)What is also of importance is, that for the greatest proportion 

of time possible, each man should actually be under inspection.(...)Not only so, but the 

greater chance there is, of a given person's being at a given time actually under 

inspection, the more strong will be the persuasion - the more intense, if I may say so, 

the feeling, he has of his being so”.(2) 

A real example of the Panopticon in a USA's prison. 

In the modern Psychology the socialisation process comprises the interiorization on 

behalf of the individual of the social rules. This point obviously cannot be skipped. Also 

it supposed an influence (of the the Panopticon device) on the individual. But the 



“influence” means a learned change in behaviour due to a change in the attitude, by a 

previous change in the perception of the society or the reality. 

But by using this sort of devices from the individual point of view, the change has not 

been done: the interiorization process does not exist. The change has not been 

motivated. It is forced by the power of the authority. To talk seriously about 

“influence” we must not talk only about submission, but also about gratitude and 

appreciation. Of course, that must be a voluntary act. This does not mean the same 

influence than coercion in this case to understand plenty the socialisation process. In 

this case, we must distinguish between “influence”, “authority” and “power”. (3) 

Perhaps a deeper understanding of the power and the meaning of cognitive 

dissonance was the main failure in Bentham´s thought. For Foucault the Panopticon 

was a potent metaphor for what he most despised about modern society. Now, instead 

the prison we must consider another sphere for CCTV surveillance: public spaces.(4) 

Picture: a download image taken in New York's 5th Avenue. 

Also this metaphor includes a general paradigm for the functioning of the modern 

power. We must consider a taxonomical study of the power in his last essence (the 

Foucault’s analysis). We are talking about a continuous visibility (of the controlled 

person) and some questions can arise: 

- Does it expect a self-subjection of the citizen? 

- Does that create a cognitive dissonance further than an interiorization of 



the “correct” behaviour? 

How the crowd has change in the new era with the communications and what about 

the terrorism, offences or the excluded that creates this system? (5) 

From the structure (the government) are a lot of potential dangers. More control 

means more stability to social life. But “stability” is bad for some social classes and 

good for others. Public control by CCTVs seems to be a good enough idea in theory, but 

the reality of surveillance is a different story. The UK legislation does try to protect 

our privacy, however loopholes and lack of regulation mean abuse.(6) The solution in this 

case means full implementation of Article 8 of the European Convention of Human 

Rights: otherwise our privacy cannot be guaranteed. 

From the citizen’s point of view there is more, because the end of the “individuality” 

means totalitarism, and we must think in this sort of idea: to be continuously monitored 

by the eye of the system. The general public does not understand the wide use of this 

technology. 

The current digital advancements have made possible an astonishing array of 

capabilities. But, what about the developments in technology? 

Certainly it has been absolutely amazing in these last years. Not only by the 

availability of the technology but by its cost: even private enterprises can access this 

technology for a low cost. 

[The hardware required is usually around the following: 500MHz PIII, 128 MB RAM, 

10Gb hard disk, a video capture card, and a camera]. (7) 

Advancements in Artificial Intelligence and OCR have been incredible. In fact, 

rather than a large outlay in expensive for dedicated hardware, a CCTV system with 

facial recognition (from a database, accessible within 3 seconds), can be set up using a 

typical desktop computer running Windows 

With the new technologies it becomes possible to cover a large area with located 

operators reporting to a central location. 

So there are two interesting points with the technology: 

- Due to the modern network links (fibre optic, ADSL, wireless networking, 

etc) data can be sent to the control center and be processed quickly. 

- The modern recognition system also means that the main characteristics 

of the human’s face are stored in a “usable size”, which means a size to be 

processed very fast by computers in order to allow the artificial human 



recognition. 

recognised. 

The modern cameras have astonishing capabilities: even in the darkness a person can be 

With the automated technologies a single person can be recognised and tracked by 

the surveillance system through a crowd of thousands of people. With the proper 

software, an operator must only select the person to be followed. (8) 

From the government’s point of view, the use of CCTV could reduce the costs made 

to covering police and produce savings. There is also evidence that CCVT reduce crime, 

but from the criminological point of view only small crimes and robberies: the irrational 

crime and the crime with violence can not be reduced with those devices. In some cases 

CCTV cameras have been useful to catch criminals and in less cases there were 

mistakes with the criminal to be arrested. This device is only a deterrent to criminals, 

it does not change by their minds. 

There is never to be a balance in the opinions about CCTV cameras. Which point has 

the priority? The self-feeling of security changes with people. From the Criminology 

Science point of view we can talk about objective or subjective security. The objective 

level of security is known by the political authorities and managers of the public 

security. The subjective concept is an image of the reality in each mind of the mass, a 

self-perception. Therefore at this point there can not be any kind of trust about the 

use of CCTV. 

There is a conflict between the right to privacy and the public security interest. 

Privacy and surveillance can not exist at the same time. Clearly, the legality of CCTV is 



in doubt. In which point we are talking about a technological paranoia and total 

surveillance society? It is very difficult to draw the line. 

In my opinion CCTV is necessary to detect criminal and terrorist activities between 

the crowds in the big city centers, but a ethical use of those devices must be done, 

otherwise we can live in a sort of enforced order, absolutely giving the back any social 

trust which indicates an advanced society. That happens because this policy (CCTV) 

works as a deterrent for criminals in the short term, for specifical offences (property 

robberies for example) and can not act in the social and human roots of the problem. 

On the other hand, offences are the result of the modern way of life, our system and 

our cities as another social interaction and not exactly a social pathology. (9) 

It makes no sense to use those devices in small villages or cities. The use of those 

devices must be justified by the security of thousands of people or historical buildings. 

Only in a few cases is justified (in some private spaces and in the center of big cities if 

we are talking about public areas). Unluckily, in UK we have seen a spectacular growth 

of CCTV systems, more than any other country of Europe. 

Has the electronic industry marketing interests in this case? For example, the Home 

Office has spent last year close to £50 million on CCTV installation in town centres. 

Also the council’s budget for these purposes has been increased (example, Bradford, 

England) (10) 

An automatic recognition done by special software and the capability of the 

hardware to store millions of data in small folders and report exactly about our 

movements at least is a scarring question. It is exactly the end of the privacy. The 

availability of the technology for the private’s enterprises with low costs breaks also 

the right of privacy, because the data can be used for non-security purposes 

(marketing research, etc). The use of software for facial recognition should not be 

allowed for private purposes (to be used with CCTV systems). 

The technology can not be bad, we must bear in mind that only the ethics and the 

way in which they are used those devices in our lives and in our society is the main 

matter to be discussed. For example: the Autoscopics is a useful technical achieving 

improvements in Psychosocial and Educational Sciences. Also the OCR technology is 

essential in the industry chains mainly for the packaging and control of quality: release 

humans from a hard work: in this case it is a contribution to the public health.(11) 

February 2002 



(1) Foucault, Michel,(2000) Discipline and punish, 21st Century Publishers,Madrid,Spain, page 

230 In original Spanish says: (...)un interrogatorio que no tuviera término, una 

investigación que se prolongara sin límite en una observación minuciosa y cada vez más analítica, un 

juicio que fuese al mismo tiempo la constitución de un expediente jamás cerrado, la benignidad 

calculada de una pena que estaría entrelazada a la curiosidad encarnizada de un examen(...). 

(2) This particular text is available on the web hosted by www.cartome.org . There are a collection of 

letter wrote by Bentham, and published in this site. Those are statements appeared on the Letter 

number 5, the essential points of the plan: http://cartome.org/panopticon2.htm. In this case the 

original source was: Bentham, Jeremy The Panopticon Writings. Ed. Miran Bozovic (London: Verso, 

1995). p. 29-95. The Bentham project (hosted by University College London) has on 

the web also an interesting array of Bentham's texts this site: www.ucl.ac.uk/Bentham- 

Project/index.htm . 

(3) There is in internet an essay considering this question: Aldama García, Galindo, 2000, “Las ideas de 

Vigotsky y sus aportaciones a la educación” (“The Vigotsky’s ideas and his contribution to the 

education”, it is wroten in Spanish language), Mexico, Open University, 

http://www.universidadabierta.edu.mx/Biblio/A/Aldama%20Galindo-Vigotsky.htm . Regard to this 

point, as says this author, to accept social rules and its interiorización implicate some kind of self 

dialectic, a simple copy in the behaviour taken from the reality it is not an internalization:“la 

reproducción o copia psíquica de la realidad externa se opone al concepto de interiorización. (…) 

Supone un cambio interno a través de una dialéctica y tiene como fruto un proceso psicológico superior. 

“ 

(4) Now the cameras at the prisons are more than a control device. It become in a sort of public 

spectacle. See Mieszkowki, Katharine;2001, Nowhere left to hide, San Francisco CA (USA), 

www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/06/18/webcam_privacy/index1.htm . 

(5) Privacy International, 2002, Video surveillance, www.privacy.org/pi/issues/cctv/index.html. 



(6) There is a very interesting case judged in the European Court of Human Rights: Sultan Khan versus 

United Kingdom, held unanimously that there has been violations of Article 8 (“right to rescpect for 

privaty and family life”) of the European Convention for Human Rights. Avalilable in the follow address 

hosted by spy organization UK: www.spy.org.uk/wtwu.htm . 

(7) C3 Group *, 2001, What is CCTV?,DeMonfort University,Leicester (UK), 

http://www.ccsr.cse.dmu.ac.uk/sara/assign/d1/tech.html 

*The C3 Group are: Rachel Hall, Mathew McNally, David Smith, Rachel Stevens, James Wheatly, Paul 

Whiffin, Daniel Withacombe. The C3 Group Report has published a report based on the findings 

gathered from research carried out in the area of surveillance under the instructions given by 

DeMonfort University, Leicester (UK). 

(8) Méndez P. Nelson. (1996). State, Capitalism and social control surveillance technologies. Caracas 

University (Venezuela). www.galeon.com/pandemonium/biblio/27panoptico.html . This essay is written 

in Spanish. Is a historical review and a political consideration of the surveillance and social control 

technologies of the 20 th century. 

(9) Sozzo Máximo.(2000) ¿Hacia la Superación de la Táctica de la Sospecha? Notas sobre Prevención 

del Delito e Institución Policial. Buenos Aires (Argentina). 

www.policiaysociedad.org/Publicaciones/CuadernoCED-CELS01.htm . Published in Spanish. 

(10) Bradford council’s budget has been increased continously, also with other external funds, e.g.: 

Crime and Disorder Reduction Strategy to develop a better district-wide co-ordination of town centre 

and city centre CCTV schemes and to examine ways of linking other CCTV installations such as those 

at the Bradford Interchange and local railway stations: has been spent arround £1.3 million plus 

external contributions (1999), 

http://www.bradford.gov.uk/council/crimeaudit/strategy/action_plans/fear_4g.html . Other 

expenses in CCTV system can be found in 

www.bradford.gov.uk/council/crimeaudit/strategy/action_plans with the total amount of the crime 

reducing an cctv expenses. Also for e.g., BBC (10 th May 2001) reports in http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgibin/education/betsie/parser.pl 

: “Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) is to be installed in parts of 

Bradford thanks to a funding package from the Home Office worth more than £750,000”. 

Acording to C3 group in his Report of Tecnologies of surveillance: “(…) The home office last year 

spent £50 million on CCTV instalation in town cetres in various locations arround the country (UK), 

(Cosmopolitan magazine, 2001)”, page number 9, item 6.2., available in this adress: 

http://www.ccsr.cse.dmu.ac.uk/sara/assign/c3/Templates/report.htm . But last data in Britain 

according to Privacy International in his web page called “video surveillance”, www.privacy.org/pi : “In 

the past decade, the use of Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) for surveillance and crime control has 



grown to unprecedented levels. In Britain between 150 and 300 million pounds (225 - 450 million 

dollars) per year is now spent on a surveillance industry involving an estimated 300,000 cameras 

covering shopping areas, housing estates, car parks and public facilities in great many towns and cities. 

“ 

(11) See the Giancarlo Albano’s page: “Las camaras inteligentes y sus aplicaciones”, 

http://neutron.ing.ucv.ve/revista-e/No6/Albano%20Giancarlo/CAMARAS.htm , Simon Bolivar 

University, Caracas, Venezuela. The original text is in Spanish, but there is an abstract in English. In 

this article, the operation, algorithms and technologies used in Smart Cameras are explained in a brief 

manner, as well as some of their possible applications and finally the future of the Smart Cameras and 

their impact in our society. Albano explain how CCTV are useful in some industries and chains. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The last access to those pages has been done on 10th February 2002. 

Albano, Giancarlo 

Las cámaras inteligentes y sus aplicaciones 

(Intelligent cameras and its aplications) 

Simon Bolivar University, Caracas, Venezuela 

www.neutron.ing.ucv.ve/revista-e/No6/Albano%20Giancarlo/CAMARAS.htm 

Bentham, Jeremy 

Bentham texts on line 

Cartome organization 

www.cartome.org/panopticon1.htm 

Bentham, Jeremy 

Texts on line 

The Bentham Project:letter no. 5, "The essential points of the plan" 

The University College London 

www.ucl.ac.uk/Bentham-Project/index.htm 

Bradford Coucil's home page 

Bradford, England (UK) 

www.bradford.gov.uk/council/crimeaudit/strategy 

C3 Group (2001) 

What is CCTV? 

DeMonfort University, Leicester (UK) 

www.ccsv.cse.dmu.ac.uk/sara/assign/d1/tech.html 



C3 Group 

(2001) 

Report about CCTV 

DeMonfort University, Leicester (UK) 

www.ccsr.cse.dmu.ac.uk/sara/assign/c3/Templates/report.htm 

Foucault, Michel (2000) 

Discipline and Punish 

21 st Century Publishers 

Madrid, Spain 

García Aldama, Galindo (2000) 

Las ideas de Vigotsky y sus aportaciones a la educación (Vigotsky ideas and his contribution 

to Education) 

Open University, Mexico 

www.universidadabierta.edu.mx/Biblio/A/Aldama%20Galindo-Vigotsky.htm 

Liberty Organization 

London, United Kingdom 

www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk 

Mendez, P. Nelson (1996) 

State, capitalism and social control surveillance technologies 

Caracas University, Venezuela 

www.galeon.com/pandemonium/biblio/27panoptico.html 

Mieszkowsy, Katharine (2001) 

Nowere left to hide 

San Francisco (USA) 

www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/06/18/webcam_privacy/index1.htm 

Privacy International 

CCTV Frequent Asked Questions (FAQ) 

London, England, (UK) 

www.privacyinternational.org/issues/cctv/cctv_faq.html 

Privacy International 

Video 

Surveillance 

London, England, (UK) 

www.privacyinternational.org/issues/cctv 



Sozzo, Máximo (2000) 

¿Hacia la superación de la táctica de la sospecha? 

Social Studies Centre 

Buenos Aires, Argentina 

www.policiaysociedad.org/Publicaciones/CuadernoCED-CELS01.htm 

Spy Organization 

Khan vs U.Kingdom 

www.spy.org.uk/reportf.htm or www.spy.org.uk/article8.htm

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