ABSTRACT
The algorithm is still in development but can already track vechicles in a standard video picture. (Bogeart, 1996: 150)
Introduction: cameras, cameras and more camerasl
As many commentators have noted, the rise of video surveillance in public spaces in Britain has been dramatic. All the major cities with a population over 500,000 boast city centre schemes, and there are in excess of 200 police and local authority schemes operating in high streets and smaller towns.2 But it is not just city centre streets which have seen a proliferation of systems. In the retail sector CCTV monitoring of customers to deter theft is now almost ubiquitous. The major out of town shopping parks, such as the Gateshead Metro Centre and Sheffield's Meadow Hall development, which attract millions of shoppers annually, have invested heavily in visual surveillance. The Metro Centre's system, for example, cost £500,000 to install, consists of 73 cameras and its security budget runs to £1 million pounds each year (Graham et al. 1996). Most of the major petrol distributors have introduced forecourt cameras to deter drive away thefts of petrol and to provide added security for their staff. High street banks and building societies continuously record their customers on entry to the premises and many display prominent notices insisting that crash helmets be removed on entry, to ensure that each person's face is adequately filmed. More recently, a number of High Street banks have taken to (covertly) photographing customers as they make withdrawals from 'hole-in-the-wall' automated cash machines in an effort to provide evidence in cases of disputed
withdrawals (Guardian, 17 July, 1994). What has been happening in our city centres has also been mirrored on our
roads and railways. There are now some 450 surveillance and enforcement cameras operating on the roads in London. Each of the 30 junctions of the M25 London orbital motorway has cameras for monitoring and enforcement purposes (Hook, 1995). The city of Oxford has installed 16 speed cameras, as have forty other local authorities. Schemes are also in operation on all the major motorways and are being extended each year. Phillips, a leading CCTV company, has recently announced the award of a £400,000 contract from the Highway Agency to extend the camera system on the MI. The Railways have also seen a dramatic increase in the number of cameras. On the London Underground, for example, what started out as a small scheme in 1975 covering four South London stations has, in twenty years risen, to a system encompassing 5,000 cameras. In the wake of the Fennell Report, British Rail has been introducing cameras on all its major stations. Neither has the public sector escaped: increasingly schools (Home Office, 1996), housing estates (Anon, 1993) and hospitals (Brahams, 1993 & Guardian, 12 February, 1995) are coming under the camera's gaze.
