THE 2012 Olympics could be a field day for the snooper state, according to civil rights group Liberty.
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A new CCTV system that draws together all the police and private security cameras in London is being planned and Liberty say the scheme should have legal backing before being brought in.
“Effectively somebody can be monitored 24-hours-a-day as they go about their business, so this is a fundamental shift in what CCTV can do,” said a Liberty spokesperson.
“That’s why we are calling for legislation and a public debate before anything like this goes forward.”
London is already the most spied on city in the world, with more CCTV cameras filming our streets and shopping malls than anywhere else – Liberty say each Londoner is likely to be filmed 300 times a day on average – but most of the camera systems cannot, at present, be easily drawn together.
“In an urban environment there are a lot of cameras, but they’re not all linked in, and they’re all on single feeds, so you are overwhelmed with information,” said Richard Fletcher, of security company EADS, which has developed a system to marry all the CCTV together.
