CCTV: Caught on Camera is the title of a three-part Channel 4 documentary by Blast! Films. The first episode on Monday, June 9, told the stories of the concierge-CCTV operators at 19 Southampton tower blocks (featured in a Dallmeier case study at installation in the March 2007 print issue of Professional Security) and the residents being monitored by some 300 cameras in lobbies, public areas and lifts – but not corridors from lifts to doors.
The first in the series heard operators tell of watching residents urinate and defecate and showed footage of a sex act in a lift, fights, and a refridgerator suddenly exploding outside a tower block, as if dropped from above. Residents gave mixed views of the surveillance, from feeling ‘observed’ to wishing for more surveillance: more cameras, and even identity cards and people having chips inserted.
As for whether the CCTV actually works, the documentary showed youths adapting by wearing hoods and pulling the draw-strings of the hoods so tightly that they could barely see – so that they were not identifiable – and defying concierge operators who tried by speaking over the intercom to persuade youths – who had no better communal area to go to – to move on. Also as operators admitted people under the influence of drink and drugs were oblivious to the cameras.
For details and two clips of CCTV in lifts, visit http://www.channel4.com/programmes/cctv-caught-on-camera. The next episode, at 10pm on Monday, June 16, looks at people fitting their own CCTV, to cover businesses and homes.
To watch the documentary on 4OD, visit the Channel 4 website.
For a fuller review see the July 2014 print issue of Professional Security.
