Not a hidden camera, not near Royston
Royston in Hertfordshire will become the first place in the UK with hidden cameras monitoring all routes in and out, creating a 'ring of steel'.
Hidden Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras will be installed by the end of April, recording the details of every vehicle entering and leaving the town. The cameras will store the registration details of anyone who drives through the town on a database in London for up to five years.
The scheme is being trumpeted by its creators as a way to make Royston the safest town in Hertfordshire and will be used to help track the movements of known criminals.
The police, North Hertfordshire District Council (NHDC) and regeneration company Royston First are keen to reassure that the ANPRs won't be used to keep tabs on the general public, but there are inevitable concerns about personal privacy and the amount of data being stored.
The scheme's creators may have the public's best intentions at heart, and those who have nothing to hide should have nothing to fear, as they say. But talk of 'rings of steel' does sound alarmingly Draconian. And hidden cameras do seem to smack of underhand motives.
PH editor Chris-R certainly thinks so - but then he does have a bit of an anti-Big Brother thing. His worries are echoed by spokes man for pressure group No CCTV, Charles Farrier. "It is a hugely worrying development," he told the Royston Weekly News. "It has been developed with no public scrutiny and government legislation. This is the biggest surveillance network that the British public have never heard of."
So what do you think? Is it nothing to worry about if you've got nothing to hide? Or is it only a matter of time before we're all talking in Newspeak and drinking Victory gin?