[Silhouette]

The idea that you should lose any form of privacy the moment you step outside your home is an extremely dangerous one. The reasons we value privacy do not suddenly cease to apply because you live a normal life.

Also, the evidence that CCTV is effective at deterring or solving crime is debatable. There is a plausible alternative theory that it simply moves the crime around. That is OK for you if you live and work in "nice" parts of town, but not so much if you are in the districts where the crime and antisocial behaviour get pushed to.

[Pick-A-Hill2019]

A +1 observation regarding the effectiveness of CCTV being debatable. I used to work in this field and the number of crystal clear views of hoodies and base-ball caps was remarkable. Cameras tend to be mounted up high to deter casual vandalism. As for number plate recognition systems - the ancient trick of stealing a set of number plates from a random vehicle is alive and well. As long as it doesn't ping anything as the car moves along it is effectively a ghost until the theft of the plate is reported. The only time I have heard of this back-firing is when there is a problem with the stolen number plate (e.g. No insurance, Intel markers etc).

[gruez]

Why bother stealing it? All that's going to do is attract attention and get your stolen plate flagged/revoked. Copying someone else's plate achieves the same goal without the unnecessary attention.

[Pick-A-Hill2019]

The more advanced A.I systems (talking specifically about number plate recognition systems here) are coded to detect 'time travel' vehicles and flag up simultaneous ANPR (Automated Number Plate Recognition) activations to detect (and prevent) number plate cloning to avoid tax, road worthiness checks etc so they only work as long as the ‘donor’ vehicle doesn’t go past an ANPR camera so in terms of time gained it works out as roughly about the same because people notice either that their plates are missing or a simultaneous ping occurs and they see blue lights in their mirror. If you were taking it from a preplanned use of a false number plate situation - in those sorts of circumstances a hire car and forged documentation is the method du jour.

[jon889]

What do you mean by normal? Not doing anything illegal?

[Silhouette]

"Not living as an eccentric hermit who never leaves their home," for the purposes of this discussion.

[jon889]

So if all the parts of town had CCTV then it would be better right?

[Silhouette]

Even from a security point of view, that's only true if they actually use it effectively. From direct personal experience, this is not always the case: just because a camera is there, that doesn't necessarily mean anyone will bother to check it, even following the theft of a considerable sum of money.

I suppose in theory, if you blanketed the entire country with CCTV (just one town is no good, the crime can move to the next town over) then you might have a deterrent effect, but of course all the other concerns about mass surveillance would still apply.

[astrobe_]

Yes, but it won't happen. It is stupidly expensive and if you leave mild criminals nowhere to go they will destroy the CCTVs (happens a lot with speed cameras, and that's just normal angry drivers).