Closed-circuit television (CCTV) has improved
hugely in recent years with a shift from analogue to digital equipment.
The vast majority of cameras now record footage in high definition, with
some capable of gigapixel resolution.
Although discouraging crime and helping to identify more offenders (made
easier with facial recognition software), this mass proliferation of
security is raising a number of privacy and civil liberties issues, due
to a creeping sense of "Big Brother". For instance, governments are
using them to keep tabs on people to stifle protest, free expression and
assembly. This is especially notable in the UK – a country renowned for
its surveillance culture – with more CCTV cameras per capita than
anywhere else on the planet, and where the average person is filmed over
300 times each day. In 2012, there were 1.85 million CCTV cameras in
the UK, 129,000 of which were high definition. By 2016, there are 3.7
million HD cameras, a 29-fold increase.
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