I am a fan of participatory culture and community-created insights.
But everything has a dark side.
Remember how in the novel 1984 Big Brother used citizens as snitches…well in Shoreditch, London, just down the road from my office, we’re doing just that.
The UK government is running a trial where citizens will be not only given access to local closed circuit television in order to keep track of any undesirables (those that have been issued with anti-social behaviour orders), but also given a set of mugshots of those ASBO recipients in order to keep track of them in the local area.
Robin Wilton today gives the phenomen a name – “digilantes”.
As Robin says, “asbolutely” incredible. We’ll see a lot more of this in future. The UK is increasing its lead as the world leader in surveillance technology and “business” models. The “Respect Agenda”. Nice.
hat-tip to KableNet.
Catherine Helzerman says:
January 13, 2006 at 2:09 am
I see applications for this technology in two growth segments: reality tv and adult entertainment
My question is: why didn’t we see this at CES?
Neil Macehiter says:
January 17, 2006 at 5:32 pm
Looks like the Information Commissioner has concerns:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/17/ic_eyes_shoreditch_cctv/
james governor says:
January 18, 2006 at 11:56 am
but the IC has no teeth, concerns or otherwise