City of Surveillance Cracks

After the London riots, the UK surveillance society must be questioning the effectiveness of surveillance systems in London, often known as the “City of Surveillance”. Author Iain Sinclair describes London as a ‘ring-fenced ghetto, city of surveillance, privately policed estate.’ However, Ross Anderson of Cambridge university in response to the recent London riots states in the Economist, “If you want the surveillance society to become a reality, you’re going to have to increase budgets by an order of magnitude.”

Maybe it’s time to turn to the “casino surveillance society” for answers? Is throwing more money at traditional surveillance the answer or is it not time to become smart as Theron Thompson from the Scarlet Raven Group advocates in his article, “Surveillance Technology: Moving from the Catwalk to Smart Technology”. Casinos around the world are using smart software to direct their daily surveillance activities instead of aimlessly scanning. The casino surveillance society are solving real problems; there’s no need for them to “become a reality”.

I’ll be writing a series of posts titled “Smart Surveillance” which will include tips, case studies and interviews on using smart software to direct surveillance activities. If you have any requests or questions which you would like answered during this series, please email me at “Smart Surveillance”.

Be smart city of London!