My thoughts on  CCTV's in Singapore (Randal Lim 28)

In todays society people are now relying more and more on technology to simplify the jobs that have to be carried out. On of this things is the closed circuit television (CCTV) . This piece of technology continuously streams video information to a screen that is most of the time located in some kind of a control centre. The CCTV helps to keep track of large places and helps the security personnel to observe people and places better as most of the CCTV's are equipped with a swivel and zoom function, and seeing from birds eye view its easier to spot things that are out of the ordinary than the person on the ground.

However after talking about all of it advantages, there are also disadvantages to the CCTV. In places like shopping centers and schools where there are many CCTV's, the sheer number of cameras means that unless the establishment is willing to invest in a really really big television the only way to monitor all the cameras is to have a system which rotates the feed from the cameras. This kind of system can be exploited by criminals like moving from one blind spot to another, another disability is that most basic CCTV's do not have a recording function, which defeats the purpose of the CCTV's if there is no one watching the live feed 24/7. 

There is also the issue of privacy, in large institutions, CCTV's are put in place to observe people and places however there are certain limits of observation, for example, in the past few years there has been a dispute of CCTV's being placed in toilets and this led to a heated argument about the appropriate use of  CCTV's. Some even said that CCTV's should be totally banned and that security should revert to the traditional patrols. I think that there must be a limit to surveillance. And CCTV's should be used wisely and not for morally wrong things.