Smile for the camera.

After you've been writing a blog like this for a while, you find that certain themes keep cropping up regularly, and one of these is CCTV cameras. Apparently we are one of the most monitored countries in the world with about one camera for every 15 of us. Of course, what we want to know is how effective these cameras are - most of us would accept a certain loss of privacy if it meant we were safer, or less likely to be the victim of a crime. I've already commented on the efficacy - or rather lack of it - of speed cameras on roads, and now we have an official report which reveals that street CCTV cameras are pretty useless at solving crime or catching criminals. The figures show that - at least in London - about one crime a year is solved thanks to CCTV evidence for every 1000 cameras. Most often, when they might be useful, they are either not working, pointing the wrong way, or by the time the police get around to looking at them, the data has been overwritten. And they're not cheap. So is it time for a rethink?