Heroes Not Zombies

I took this photo many years ago in Edinburgh city centre. I suppose I was becoming aware of the proliferation of security cameras that was occurring back then. From the perspective of today, there were hardly any!

Do you security cameras make you feel safer? I think I’m in two minds about them. I’d like to believe that they might deter some criminality but I don’t know if that’s true. On the other hand, it’s a bit like having lived in places where nobody locked their front door…..that’s just the opposite of having to live in a gated community with security guards and CCTV (although I should be clear….I’ve never lived in a place like that). When you think of those two extremes which one of them feels like it might be a safer place to live?

I live in a small village in South West France. I live in a cul de sac in the village, so the only passing traffic is the occasional tractor making its way onto the vineyards. My elderly neighbour appears out of his garden gate whenever a different vehicle turns up. He’s like a one man neighbourhood watch!

The other thing I wonder when I see a CCTV camera is who is looking at the footage? Is it just recording so it can be reviewed if a crime is committed, or is someone sitting somewhere watching the live feed.

The thing that makes this particular image interesting for me is the placing of the camera just next to the stone carved head. It kind of seems like the stone head is looking through the camera, which, of course, is impossible, but that gets me thinking about all the non-human surveillance we are now subject to.

Whether it’s Facebook, or Amazon, or Google’s algorithms we are under constant surveillance by computers and software. And like the CCTV I expect most of that all goes on with no human “live” involvement, but as best I know it’s all being recorded and someone can analyse all that whenever they want.

None of that makes me feel safer or more comfortable. And now we are moving into a new era of health surveillance. Here in France we’ll need to produce the QR code which shows we’ve been vaccinated before we can get into cinemas, theatres, restaurants and so on, and when it comes to travel across borders you have to subject yourself to testing and give a lot of information about your travel plans….all, apparently, for “public health reasons”.

I think I can see a lot of potential benefit from the more connected world, and I can understand the good intentions behind a lot of the surveillance, but, surely it would help us all to become a bit more at ease if we felt that the data about us was available to us, and that anyone who wanted to use or analyse that data had to get our permission and be open about what they do with that data.

I know, I know, it’s a complex, but, let’s face it, uncomfortable subject, but it’s one we are going to have to tackle sooner rather than later.