Last week amidst great attention, with cries of ”Big Brother is watching you” and allegations of new police methods, a new surveillance system was switched on in Liverpool. Twenty cameras placed in the city centre are to record the citizens’ doings and possible criminal activities. There are already cameras in several stores, banks and public buildings all over Great Britain, but it is expected, that many cities will follow the example of Liverpool.
You might think, that the films that have been recorded by the cameras would be valuable as evidence: in several legal cases the prosecutor’s side has used the films successfully against the accused, for instance in the James Bulger-case from Liverpool itself. However, it is little known that these cameras are practically useless, when speaking of identifying criminals. A high-ranking police officer recently stated that out of eight-hundred film recordings of robberies only half a dozen could be used for actually convicting the criminals.
How can that be? If you have a picture of a robber who is committing a crime, you are not far from catching him even though the picture might be a bit blurry, one would think. But it is not that easy: for even if the police say that they recognize the person in the filmed recording, the question will undoubtedly be posed whether the suspect is really the man in the video. “With fingerprints or DNA-tests you can be very certain, but with pictures there is a greater uncertainty”, says Dr. Barry Irving of Scotland Yard.
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