Closed-Circuit Tele Vision
FYI: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Closed-circuit television (
CCTV) is the use of
video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors.
It differs from
broadcast television in that the signal is not openly transmitted, though it may employ point to point (P2P), point to multipoint, or mesh wireless links. Though almost all video cameras fit this definition, the term is most often applied to those used for
surveillance in areas that may need monitoring such as banks, casinos, airports, military installations, and convenience stores.
Videotelephony is seldom called "CCTV" but the use of video in
distance education, where it is an important tool, is often so called.
In industrial plants, CCTV equipment may be used to observe parts of a process from a central control room, for example when the environment is not suitable for humans. CCTV systems may operate continuously or only as required to monitor a particular event. A more advanced form of CCTV, utilizing
Digital Video Recorders (DVRs), provides recording for possibly many years, with a variety of quality and performance options and extra features (such as motion-detection and email alerts). More recently, decentralized IP-based CCTV cameras, some equipped with megapixel sensors, support recording directly to
network-attached storage devices, or internal flash for completely stand-alone operation.
Surveillance of the public using CCTV is particularly common in the
United Kingdom, where there are reportedly more cameras per person than in any other country in the world.
There and elsewhere, its increasing use has triggered a debate about security versus privacy.
History
Closed circuit TV in Munich, 1973
Sign warning that premises are watched by CCTV cameras.
The first CCTV system was installed by
Siemens AG at
Test Stand VII in
Peenemünde, Germany in 1942, for observing the launch of
V-2 rockets.
The noted German engineer
Walter Bruch was responsible for the design and installation of the system.
In the U.S. the first commercial closed-circuit television system became available in 1949, called Vericon. Very little is known about Vericon except it was advertised as not requiring a government permit.
CCTV recording systems are still often used at modern launch sites to record the flight of the rockets, in order to find the possible causes of malfunctions,
while larger rockets are often fitted with CCTV allowing pictures of stage separation to be transmitted back to earth by radio link.
The history of CCTV in the United States varies from that of the United Kingdom. One of is first appearances was in 1973 in Times Square in New York City.
. The NYPD installed it in order to deter crime that was occurring in the area however crime rates did not appear to drop much due to the cameras.
. Nevertheless, during the 1980s video surveillance began to spread across the country specifically targeting public areas.
. It was seen as a cheaper way to deter crime compared to increasing the size of the police departments
Some businesses as well, especially those that were prone to theft, began to use video surveillance.
. During the 1990s digital multiplexing, which allowed for several cameras at once to record, and introduced time lapse and motion only recording, increased the use of CCTV across the country.
. This would have been preferable to the old style of camera due to the amount of time and money that could be saved. From the mid 1990s on, police departments across the country installed an increasing number of cameras in various public spaces including housing projects, schools and public parks departments
. Following the attacks on September 11th, the use of video surveillance has become a common occurrence in the country to deter future terrorist attacks
.
In September 1968,
Olean, New York was the first city in the United States to install video cameras along its main business street in an effort to fight crime.
[citation needed]
The use of CCTV later on became very common in banks and stores to discourage theft, by recording evidence of criminal activity. Their use further popularised the concept. The first place to use CCTV in the United Kingdom was
King's Lynn, Norfolk.
In recent decades, especially with general crime fears growing in the 1990s and 2000s, public space use of surveillance cameras has taken off, especially in some countries such as the
United Kingdom.
Uses
Crime prevention
The two-year-old
James Bulger being led away by his killers, recorded on shopping centre CCTV.
Experiments in the UK during the 1970s and 1980s (including outdoor CCTV in
Bournemouth in 1985), led to several larger trial programs later that decade.
These were deemed successful in the government report "CCTV: Looking Out For You", issued by the
Home Office in 1994, and paved the way for a massive increase in the number of CCTV systems installed. Today, systems cover most town and city centres, and many stations, car-parks and estates.
A more recent analysis by Northeastern University and the University of Cambridge, "Public Area CCTV and Crime Prevention: An Updated Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis," examined 44 different studies that collectively surveyed areas from the United Kingdom to U.S. cities such as Cincinnati and New York. The analysis found that: 1) Surveillance systems were most effective in parking lots, where their use resulted in a 51% decrease in crime; 2) Public transportation areas saw a 23% decrease in crimes; 3) Systems in public settings were the least effective, with just a 7% decrease in crimes overall. When sorted by country, however, systems in the United Kingdom accounted for the majority of the decrease; the drop in other areas was insignificant.
[18]
The results from the above 2009 “Public Area CCTV and Crime Prevention: An Updated Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis” conducted by Walsh and Farrington,
are somewhat controversial.
Earlier similar meta-analysis completed by Welsh and Farrington in 2002 showed similar results: a significant decrease in
car park crime (41%), and a non-significant decrease of crime in public transit and public places.
This study was criticized for the inclusion of
confounding variables (e.g. notification of CCTV cameras on site, improved street lighting) found in the studies analyzed (including car park studies). These factors could not be teased apart from the effect of CCTV cameras being present or absent while crimes were being committed.
Thus, a combination of factors might be important for the decrease in crime not just the CCTV cameras. The 2009 study admitted to similar problems as well as issues with the consistency of the percentage of area covered by CCTV cameras within the tested sites (e.g. car parks have more cameras per square inch than public transit).
There is still much research to be done to determine the effectiveness of CCTV cameras on crime prevention before any conclusions can be drawn.
There is little evidence that CCTV deters crime; in fact, there is considerable evidence that it does not.
According to a
Liberal Democrat analysis, in London "Police are no more likely to catch offenders in areas with hundreds of cameras than in those with hardly any."
A 2008 Report by UK. Police Chiefs concluded that only 3% of crimes were solved by CCTV.
In London, a
Metropolitan Police report showed that in 2008 only one crime was solved per 1000 cameras.
There are valid reasons for including CCTV as a component of a physical security program, but deterrence is not one of them.
Cameras have also been installed on
public transport in the hope of deterring crime,
and in mobile police surveillance vans, often with
automatic number plate recognition.
In some cases CCTV cameras have become a target of attacks themselves.
The installation and maintenance of CCTV for crime prevention is expensive.
Gill and Spring did a
cost-benefit analysis of CCTV in crime prevention that showed little monetary saving with the installation of CCTV as most of the crimes prevented resulted in little monetary loss.
It was however noted that benefits of non-monetary value cannot be captured in a traditional cost-benefit analysis and were omitted from their study.
To get a full understanding of the costs and benefits of CCTV in crime prevention these factors would have to be included.
On July 22, 2005,
Jean Charles de Menezes was shot dead by police at
Stockwell tube station. According to brother Giovani Menezes, "The film showed that Jean did not have suspicious behaviour" .
Because of the
bombing attempts the previous day, some of the tapes had been supposedly removed from CCTV cameras for study, and they were not functional.
An ongoing change to
DVR-based technology may in future stop similar problems occurring.
In October 2009, an "Internet Eyes" website was announced which would pay members of the public to view CCTV camera images from their homes and report any crimes they witnessed. The site aimed to add "more eyes" to cameras which might be insufficiently monitored, but civil liberties campaigners criticized the idea as "a distasteful and a worrying development"
