Maybe not, but plod is becoming ever more officious and would rather meet their targets by targetting minor transgressions like pointing a camera at the street rather than catching the real pikey scrotes. See the story of the woman ordered to remove a sign saying "my dog eats Jehovah's Witnesses" after 30 years and numerous other petty misdemeanors that are nowadays blown out of all proportion.
MBQ
All it takes is one complaint that the camera is taking photos of children ...
Owain
I'm replying to two post in one here ...
Don't give in so easily! A little local history is informative ...
When I first moved here in the late 90s, it seemed a quiet, decent sort of area - 80s cul-de-sac estate adjoining a park and nature reserve in the suburbs of a large city, with mostly family houses. I went to work most days, occasionally working from home, closed my curtains at night, and for a few years remained completely *unaware* of what was *really* going on under the surface.
I first became aware of problems around five years' ago. When working from home I spotted vans outside the children's playground and a team of workmen apparently carting it away lock, stock, and barrel. I went and spoke to them, and it had been vandalised to the point of almost complete clearance on safety grounds. I'd casually seen gangs of youths in it at night but had thought no more about it.
Then I started leaving my curtains open at night, and became aware that these gangs were setting fire to litter bins, throwing stones, knocking on doors, playing football in the street using cars as goals, wrecking garden fencing, etc. Some were openly riding motorbikes through the park and an adjoining nature reserve, and even on one occasion in what had been the playground. There was a motorbike race in the street which took out a street light.
It was beginning to feel like we lived on one of those troublesome estate one sees occasionally on the news, particularly after dark - the difference in the atmosphere between night and day was quite marked, certainly worrying, even frightening. I believe that if we hadn't collectively and individually taken strong steps against all this, we could have been a 'problem' estate by now.
I started by taking still photos of the daytime playground vandalism, making a point of calling the police whenever fire was involved. I knew that if they kept doing it, sooner or later the police would happen to respond quickly enough to catch them, and this duly happened. The vandalism has now stopped, the playground was rebuilt around 2 years ago and has remained intact and in use ever since.
This made me a particular target of the local youths, but I am divorced and have no children who could be bullied at school, so am not really vulnerable to intimidation. However, I decided that things had gone too far when about
18 months ago four of them poured urine through my letter box, and I installed CCTV.Since then I have given the local police digital still photos, VHS tapes, and even a DVD compilation - clips ranging from theft, youths (and even some adults) riding motor bikes and scooters and quadbikes in the park, stone throwing, and even a clip of one youth who just serially took his dog into the local playground despite having the health hazard that this creates explained to him.
I don't want to count chickens and continue to remain alert, because things can change overnight, but life is a lot quieter here now. There are very few incidents of motor-bikes or scooters going into the park or nature reserve (at least one offender had his confiscated and others have been warned that they'll lose theirs). The local youths, while occasionally still abusive, have stopped the vandalism, stone throwing, playing football in the street, taking the dog into the playground, etc.
Particularly, I suppose because the they don't feel comfortable around here now - probably because they feel they are being watched, which they are - they don't gather in large gangs any more. We are left with two or three troublesome local ones who are less blatant without the protection of large numbers coming in from elsewhere.
Moral: Don't assume that everything's ok, be aware of what is really happening beyond your curtains at night. Take collective action as far as possible, but be prepared to stand up and be counted as an individual as well. Photographic and video evidence enables the police to take much more targeted and relevant action than verbal reports. If youths and vandals start to get too much aggro in one place, they'll eventually move on to others.
Also ...
So where was 'here'? There was no link.
I've had a run-in with the local police about this; they were initially very reluctant to accept video from my system. Things began to turn around when there was a robbery, and it just so happened that I observed and reported it and my system had caught the perpetrators as they passed in front of my house - they were caught and convicted as a direct result. Nevertheless, they still seemed reluctant to use other CCTV footage, and when I offered it over the phone I often got conflicting viewpoints as to why.
In despair, I wrote to my local councillors, one of whom turned out to be an ex-copper. I asked him about the police's reluctance. He said that there was no problem with videoing evidence in your own premises or in a public place, but that video of what was occurring in other people's premises was unlikely to be accepted by courts in normal circumstances.
He also said that if the video was of the type where the date and time were subtitiled onto the footage, to be certain that the system clock was correct (don't forget the time changeovers in spring and autumn) otherwise, I imagine, a good defence lawyer would rubbish it out of court.
He also said to keep tape in good condition and make sure the heads are clean, so the result was more likely to be useful.
I also understand that you need to have a notice saying that your premises use CCTV.
As a result of his intervention, the police have now viewed all the evidence I had.
I use a Micromark CCTV built into a front door light, but I can't recommend it:
:-{ It was replaced twice under warranty :-{ Nevertheless, the photo-sensitive light control is broken so I have to remember to turn it on in the evening (not a problem) and off in the morning (a problem). :-{ Although the camera can be turned to face the approach to the door, the PIR which can be set to control the light and switch the TV over to the camera can not, so I have to keep the light on permanently at night - youths delivering papers discovered that they could approach the door without the light coming on, and word soon got around. :-{ The camera is not very sensitive to sodium street-lighting (the predominant yellow type) :-{ The greyscales produced are often surprisingly different from colour vision - a light colour can produce a dark grey and a black can produce a light grey. :-{ It can't be angled vertically. :-{ When the PIR fires, it will either switch your TV over to the camera or sound a very loud buzzer, or both, neither of which I want. :-{ It requires excavation of quite a large channel and quite a lot of ingenious patience to pull the DIN plug through the wall when installing it.
It does have a some good points though:
:-} The camera is discreet - it was there for quite a while without anyone apparently noticing it, and word only got around when the thieves were caught. :-} It can be angled horizontally, so when required I can turn it to film what is happening in the park. Again, even when they knew I had CCTV, it was quite a while before the trouble-makers realised this. :-} The video comes out of the control box through a standard SCART connector, so can be plugged into any standard recording device.
I record everything that happens 24hrs (no motion detection) outside my front door onto a HDD/DVD-R recorder hard disk. I use normal editing facilities to preserve anything I think merits it before it's overwritten, being sure to log the date and exact time in the title of the clip. If I particularly want to record TV with the HDD/DVD-R, I can also record the camera using a VCR. I can dub footage onto VHS or DVD-R as appropriate.
Notwithstanding my comments about sensitivity to street-lighting above, this could simply be a matter of TV/Monitor adjustment. It?s surprising what a difference this can make - a scene initially appearing to contain nothing whatever of value can actually reveal quite a lot if the set is adjusted optimally and viewed in a darkened room. In particular, while I very much prefer a modern LCD flat-panel for normal TV viewing, with night-time CCTV it?s difficult to get a good combination of backlight, brightness and contrast levels, and I have found that I get best results from an old Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) TV, with the contrast around 3/4 of maximum, the brightness about 5/8 of maximum, and other picture controls at their mid-point. Before lashing out on IR stuff, try investigating this. I get useful results at night without IR stuff, though obviously I would welcome the improvement that IR would bring.
I'm inclined to think it particularly bad of CCTV makers not to make sure that their kit is sensitive to street lighting, though I guess given the limited ranges of frequencies involved there may be little or no overlap between those of the common sodium and mercury sources and the sensitivity of the CMOS/CCDs.
Wow! have you ever thought joe public is paying council tax for policing the beat?
And here's you doing the job for them.
Exactly, never see them around anymore?...
With the type and purpose of the installation you propose you would almost certainly not be exempt under S36 which simply states :-
"36. Personal data processed by an individual only for the purposes of that individual's personal, family or household affairs (including recreational purposes) are exempt from the data protection principles and the provisions of Parts II and III."
You can have a system to protect your property even if it unavoidably includes some public areas. What you can't do is have anything which reacts to individuals or which can be used or accessed by anyone other than you.
Not a lot of good unless they can be corroborated. So a video showing someone bashing your car is pretty useless. A video of someone bashing your car which also shows the house lights coming on and the scrote running away as you come out can be very useful _if_ you are able to say "I went out of the house and saw Fred Bloggs run off".
Most are certainly that.
I have seen more patrols by police in the last six months than I previously had in the last six years ... but, more to the point, they will quite rightly follow the problem. What we have been largely successful in doing is moving the problem on.
I think your reply shows a common shortcoming in our modern way of thinking ...
We pay council tax, income tax, electricity and water charges, or whatever and think that somehow that absolves us for personal responsibility for our lives:
... whereas actually ...
There is a whole class of human problems that do *NOT* fall into the you-solve-it-by-flinging-money-at-it category. Just because we pay for something doesn't absolve us from personal responsibility for the way we use it.
I've just ordered a device from ebay ....
I am going to have mine running outside my front door, photographing anyone that approaches. Hopefully the postman won't mind. I may have a second in my lounge just for monitoring as well.
Pity it was a CMOS device. :-(
Yeah, but the camera is easily replaceable in the future, ideally with an IR camera. It's the server in a box that's the bit I wanted. So, I'll just wait for CCD cameras to drop in price and replace in the future.
It's an interesting product, not needing a PC is just the ticket.
Did you know about Zone monitor for Linux ?
Dave
I looked at a few, but the main problem was just getting the camera to work with the system. It just took too much of my time, and I also use the linux box for other things. It's not entirely ruled out, but I thought I'd test this solution and see what the benefits are. Hopefully it'll be a full solution :)
Not applicable to domestic installations, nor to installations without recording capacity, nor to commercial installations with fixed cameras that are used solely for crime prevention and with strict controls on the data stored - although the last took a test case to achieve.
Colin Bignell
In message , none writes
Businesses usually get permission if they are truly monitoring public property but I think you will find that a proportion of the shop frontage is part of the shop property. The data protection act is also involved.
Ask somebody who will know, I.E. your local council and police authority. Unlikely to get into trouble but better safe than sorry.
In message , tony sayer writes
Phone them, make sure your complaint gets logged, ask for a reference number. The police are statistics driven, if there are a lot of complaints from one area you will get a presence, possibly to the detriment of another area though. If the stats aren't seen to show a need, there isn't a need.
In article , Java Jive writes
Well round here we see the police chopper more then any coppers!....
In article , Java Jive writes
Yes quite but who are "they" who made this disrespect for law and order in the first place?..
Seems very much to me that "they" are taking the wrong doo'ers side too much...
The message from "The3rd Earl Of Derby" contains these words:
I don't think that's fair. Looking after your neighbourhood is the responsibility of those who live in it, with support from the police. It's not something you leave entirely to the police.
I think you will find if you look under the surface that that IS a Linux machine ;) I just happen to have a few little MIPS machines and a NAS that can think for it self (Via C3-2) sitting around my house doing other useful things, also I'm a bit of a tinkerer hence I set up my own system using generic security camera's.
Best of luck with your CCTV solution.
//J
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