Dear LPG,

Here is a thought provoking fact, the internet is full of statistics and I have found one that I think could be seen as both interesting and worrying in equal amounts. Did you know that there is a top ten of the most watched cities in the world and London features?

A couple of years ago we had the distinction of being the third most ‘watched’ city in the world and perhaps even more surprising was the note that we are the only city in the western world to feature in that top ten with all the others being in China. It is becoming commonplace to see British news stories where people’s steps are traced as they enter and leave train stations, walk down certain streets or use one of those ATM machines.

I suppose you either worry about it or not, but I have always felt that, as long as you are not doing anything that you are ashamed of, it can only be a good thing. More and more carers who are not working to their expected high standards are getting caught by families who install them in clients homes and, if you are a motorist, there is always the risk that an electronic eye is catching you in a yellow box junction or if you park your car in the wrong place, and we all know that the shop security guards have electronic help in many stores these days when it comes to finding shoplifters, but as I don’t do that sort of thing I am not too worried about them.   I think that most of us Brits know that London has always rated quite high on the ‘cities with the most CCTVs installed’ top ten scale and, while we don’t really think about it much, I know that I am likely to be seen by one or two cameras every time that I venture out to the shops at the bottom of my road.

There is nowhere to run (even if we older people still can) on the main streets of Lewisham anymore, but I was not aware that we are now much more likely to be seen on our smaller roads these days; the ones which only boast rows of suburban houses.

I got a Ring Bell before going on holiday two years ago and I found it fascinating to be able to check on my phone and see who was visiting as soon as they started up my front path, even though I was thousands of miles away at the time. But I did not know that the police also use those domestic cameras in their detective work.

One Sunday morning not so long ago I was preparing breakfast when a local policeman knocked at my door and asked me if I would be willing to let them see the footage taken on my video bell a couple of days earlier. He told me that by doing this with all the homes that now have a video bell up and down the street, they would be able to trace the path that someone that they wanted to find had taken. I didn’t mind helping, as I said I have nothing to hide, but three things occurred to me.

The first is just how much more than your front garden a video bell can see if you have one.

I secondly remembered all the fuss that was caused with some of those somewhat personal pictures that were taken on smart phones, uploaded to the cloud and published before people got a little more sensible about the pictures they take. Video bells also store their footage on the cloud. The policemen asked me if I would be willing to let them see my footage, but how long will it be before they bypass permissions and legislate that the bell companies have to hand it over.

And finally, now that there are video cameras dotted up and down even the smaller streets in our borough, perhaps we need to spend a lot more time making sure that we are properly dressed even for a trip to the local post box or before spending half an hour tidying up the front garden and, whatever else you do, resist that urge to scratch those itches that attack certain parts of the anatomy as we walk down any street, just in case we get caught doing that!

HW, Crofton Park

HW shares her evidence…

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