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Why is the UK the Surveillance Capital of the World?
Why is the UK the Surveillance Capital of the World?
The UK is addicted to surveillance and we are indeed the surveillance capital of the world. In the UK there is a CCTV or security camera for every 14 people in the country. We are constantly monitored and our daily lives are recorded by surveillance cameras.
While we are all used to so called safety cameras on the A and B roads, even motorway driving is now tracked, so they can tell where you go and what speed you are driving at. Your credit and debit card activities are also monitored (this is known as dataveillance) and every time we are out in a shopping centre or in the centre of town, our image is being recorded.
It also appears things are going to get worse and not better with some experts claiming that soon every street in every town will be fitted with a CCTV camera.
Indeed such is the extent of surveillance in the UK that we are now the worst country for surveillance in terms of any other western developed society. Around 20% of all the CCTV cameras in the world are found in the UK and yet we are a tiny, tiny country. So why is this?
Well one main reason could be that we have absolved ourselves of any collective responsibility for the acts of others. Historically, when someone was attacked or hurt or we saw something wrong being done, people would intervene. Now, many people are too scared to do this and there is something at the back of our minds that says ‘Oh it will be ok, they will get the guy using CCTV’. So we just walk on by and of course the more we walk on by, the more crimes are committed, so the more CCTV cameras we need. A vicious circle indeed. And CCTV doesn’t actually work, with only about 3% of crimes actually being ‘solved’ by the use of CCTV. So it is a pointless exercise and it is expensive, since people have to be paid to watch the screens and then supposedly alert the police if a crime is taking place. Sometimes the police will be too busy to attend anyway.
The government’s ‘nanny style’ approach is also to blame. Now the government tells us what we should eat, what we ought to drink, when we should sleep and how we should bring up our kids. So CCTV cameras and recording data is just one further step in the process.
People have also lost their sense of privacy: where would the likes of Jerry Springer and Jeremy Kyle be if people were not willing to reveal the most intimate details of their lives on national TV, or parade their own unique take on life on sites such as Facebook?
People have lost all faith in politicians, which has turned them off politics, so there is a feeling that people don’t really care. Most people just shrug their shoulders and go and have a pint in the pub.
But all these factors combined give rise to lethargy and a real feeling of just not being ‘bothered’ about CCTV and camera usage. But one day we may all live to regret this lethargy when Big Brother really does take over.
Doug has a bag on his head
Vote for the black bloke with the funny name
He just makes it easier for the rest of the world to see the US as a free and nice country with opportunities for all.
- A black bloke in power who does not kill or rob
- A bloke with a Muslim sounding name who runs a country who is at war with Muslim countries, but not over religion
- A bloke who is less than 50 and gained power without a gun
- An originally poor bloke who came from more or less nothing to be the most powerful man in the world.
That is a story to preach to the world of what can be achieved by a country.
Doug hopes he wins
Shame the Oil Price has dropped
When the prices go up everyone worries about how they will fill up their big white car with petrol.
People whinge and whine
Governments try to work out how they will get the prices down or find alternatives.
Then some wonderful people realise what is going on and make sure the price of oil drops again
Everybody stops being concerned….
Doug wonders what we do when we have no choice
David Beckham
Curious, was he not paid US$250 million to help grow the US soccer market?
So the US season ends, LA Galaxy are 2nd bottom, but more of a concern Beckham now packs up and leaves. How is that helping the US soccer industry? Shouldn’t he be off talking to everyone and anyone and generally help promote soccer in the US.
Doug thinking
Do NCP make sure rules are hidden so they can fine people?
Park in one of their carparks at your peril?
How about this?
- Be pointed to a car park that has no staff managing it.
- No free spots are available in marked areas.
- Many people are parked in unmarked area.
- No signs saying no parking in unmarked areas, no people to ask.
- Park in unmarked area.
- Recieve a fine as have broken rules.
Is that legal????
Doug confused and annoyed
Freeview for the internet - what will Sky do if we don’t pay?
ITV, Channel 4 and BBC Worldwide are forming a one stop shop for watching recent TV shows, called Project Kangaroo.
Seems like Sky don’t like it as this new company may control too much of the online television market. Maybe I remember wrong but didn’t Sky buy some of ITV not so long ago? Aren’t sky owned by News Corp who also own The Sun and The Times.
Doug does like his Sky but does not like paying too much for it.
Revolution R4 for Nintenod DS
What a piece of kit so I have heard……copy games for your Nintendo DS Console
Review straight from Amazon
I purchased this a couple weeks ago and I am so happy to have it. I was tired of lugging around all my DS games everywhere so now with this one card I can play all my games.
It is easy to set up (if you have basic computer skills) and it is fun for those that love working with skins/themes.
I can also listen to my mp3s(I don’t think wmas or accs are compatible with the r4ds), view pictures (had to shrink my image sizes), and even videos (haven’t tried this yet).
If you hate carrying around all your DS games this is a must buy. Just make sure you buy the original and no knockoff (like the r4dsIII).
Doug been travelling too long
Is Privacy a Thing of the Past?
Is Privacy a Thing of the Past?
I’ll track you down…………………..
Personal privacy is definitely a thing of the past, no question about it and to some extent we are all masters of our own decline. But before we look at current attitudes towards privacy, we need to look back and complete a little history lesson.
In the ‘olden days’ people lived quite isolated lives, they knew people in their locality, they did not have phones, TV or internet connections. Even travel was difficult because people had to walk to where they wanted to go or save enough to catch a train.
Then with the arrival of the 20th Century we all embrace technology and the conveniences it offered. Now we have entertainment at home, we can telephone anyone we want to and by the end of the Century, email throughout the world instantly!
Then more and more information became available on the internet. Now instead of having to think ‘I wonder what happened to Johnny Jones?’ and wondering how his life had shaped up, we can simply type Johnny Jones into Yahoo or Google and, while it may take some sifting through, we can actually find out what happened to the said Mr Jones. And if he and also has a site in Facebook or MySpace, we may be able to find out a lot about him (and he about you).
But there is a sense that many of the things that people write in Facebook or MySpace, Bebo etc will actually come back to haunt them. As recently as 2007, a survey of employers revealed that many look in social networking sites and assess the suitability of a candidate against their entries on the sites. So if you have entered your hobbies as decapitating worms or getting hideously drunk every night: beware, this may well come back to haunt you.
You may be able to change your Facebook entries, but what about entries that you have made with regard to other people’s entries, since you have little control over them, can they come back to haunt you?
People seem to have embraced the technological advances of the internet and ‘ease of communication’ without thinking about the implications. Before if we wanted to track someone down, a private detective had to be hired, or at least some really hard work, on our part, to find them. Now it can be done in three clicks of a mouse (sometimes more sometimes less).
Add in to this scenario the fact that the UK now has more surveillance cameras than any other country, along with powers that have been vested in local authorities as part of the ‘war on terror’ and you can see that we no longer have any privacy and many people who felt that they wanted to share their intimate details with the world when they were 20, may live to regret it when they are 40, trying for senior management posts and have children to consider. Yes, privacy may no longer be around, but we really have to accept much of the responsibility for this situation ourselves.
Doug will run off and hide:)
Myers Briggs Personality Test - Put people in boxes - profile them
Did you know the world the Myers-Briggs test is the most widely used for the testing of personality types. Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother, Katharine Cook Briggs came up with the test during the Second World War and their intention was to assist women who were getting into employment in industry for the first time to single out the occupations where they would fit in well. I thought they served:)
With the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, one can be classified according to four preferences. These four preferences include one’s degree of introversion or extraversion, whether one concentrates on information being received from their imagination or senses, whether one makes decisions based on emotion or careful thought and whether one is a perceiving or a judging person. Hence there are 16 different personality types.
Profiling of staff has its pros and cons. The good side of it is that it is relatively fast to implement since the same content is used regardless of job description. This fact alone also makes it relatively inexpensive. n the other hand, the fact that one assessment is used for a variety of job descriptions makes it too generic and it could miss out on specifics that may not be important in one job but which are critical in another.
Another criticism levelled against employee profiling is the fact that the benchmark profile is set based on employees who have already performed in the job role but when this is then used to judge a candidate who may not have had such particular experience, they may be locked out unfairly. Also being a high performer could be resulting from factors that the assessment does not take into account, thereby rendering the whole assessment useless unless of course other tools are brought into play.
That said profiling can be a very useful tool. When an organisation needs to implement an assessment method at short notice or when the position for which an assessment method is required for is highly mainstream, this type of profiling will be just the thing to help employers make their selection.
Doug is a ENFP
ENFPs are basically happy people. They may become unhappy when they are confined to strict schedules or mundane tasks:)