Article

This is an original article as printed in the Guardian Weekly which is suitable for advanced comprehension classes written by Paul Lewis.

World learns from London's all-seeing CCTV hub

Millions of people walk beneath the unblinking gaze od central London's surveillance cameras. Most don't know that deep under the pavements along which they are walking their digital image is gliding across a wall of plasma screens.

Westminster council's CCTV control room, where a click and swivel of a joystick delivers panoramic views of any central London street, is seen by civil liberty campaigners as a symbol of the UK's growing dependence on surveillance.

The Home Office, which funded the creation of the $1.76m facility seven years ago, believes it to be a "best practice example" on which the future of the UK's public surveillance system should be modelled.

So famed has central London's surveillance network become that more than 6,000 officials from 30 countries have come to learn lessons from the centre.

They include police with the job of keeping order in the most dangerous cities on earth, from São Paulo in Brazil to Baltimore in the US, as well as officials from China.

The UK leads the world in surveillance of its people. Exactly how many CCTV cameras there are in the UK is not known, although one study four years ago estimated that 4.8m cameras had been installed.

What is rarely disputed is that the UK has more cameras per citizen than anywhere else.

Inside the Westminster's control room with its wall of 48 CCTV monitors Dan Brown supervises operators whose job is to zoom in on anything suspicious.

"The majority of our cameras can zoom in to ID someone from a range of 75 metres," said Brown.

Westminster cameras record 600 "incidents" a month, from littering to serious assaults.

Footage has proved crucial to police investigators, said Dean Ingledew, Westminster's director of community protection, but the benefits of CCTV are still being debated.

A joint Home Office and police report recently found 80% of CCTV pictures are of such poor quality they cannot be used for detecting crime, and a police surveillance expert estimated last year that just 3% of crimes were solved by CCTV.

Defending the searching gaze of London' cameras, Ingledew said that people who do not look as though they are doing anything wrong will be left alone.

Glossary

Home Office

(noun) the UK ministry which deals with police and prisons

civil liberty campaigner

(noun) person who campaigns for the freedom of people to say or do what they want while respecting others

facility

(noun) a place with building used for a particular purpose

littering

(noun) throwing away rubbish in the street

Questions

The questions below are divided into three groups - before, during and after reading the above article.

Before reading

Nouns from the article Complete the definitions with the words: gaze, hub, image, incident, joy-stick, network, surveillance camera.

1. A ___ is the central and most important part of a place.
2. An ___ is something that happens which is unpleasant or bad.
3. A ___ is a long and steady look at something.
4. A ___ is a piece of equipment that is used to film people.
5. A ___ is a system of computers etc which are joined together.
6. A ___ is an upright handle used to move images on a computer game etc.
7. An ___ is a picture seen on a TV or computer.

Look at the headline, photo and caption. Answer these questions.

1. What is CCTV? What do you think the letters stand for? How does it work?
2. Why do people from different countries go to the CCTV hub in London?
3. How many incidents are recordeed in Westminster every month?

While reading

Read the article. Put yes or no against the following statements. Westminster councils control room ...

1. is underground.
2. can see any street in the whole of London.
3. was created seven years ago.
4. has been visited by about 30 officials from around the world.
5. contains a wall of 75 screens.
6. has special cameras which can zoom in on people.

Read the article again. Match question words to the questions. Then find the answers: how, how many, how much, what, who, why -

1. ___ do civil liberty campaigners think about the control room?
2. ___ money did the Home Office spend on the centre?
3. ___ does the UK compare to other countries in terms of surveillance?
4. ___ CCTV cameras were in the UK four years ago?
5. ___ are 80% of CCTV pictures not useful for detecting crime?
6. ___ will be left alone, according to Dean Ingledew?

After reading

What do these words from the headline and first paragraph mean?

1. World learns from London's all-seeing CCTV hub.
2. Millions walk beneath the unblinking gaze of ... surveillance cameras.
3. Most don't know that their ... digital image is gliding across a wall of plasma screens.

Why do you think the journalist used these words?

Complete the crossword with words from paragraphs six to 13. Put all nouns in the singular and verbs in the base form.

Activity - Debate

Imagine that a new CCTV control centre is going to be built in your town

1. Work in two groups. Each group is either for or against the CCTV centre. Brain-storm reasons why you are for/against. Choose a main speaker and summeriser.
2. Come together as a group. The main speaker from each group puts forward their ideas and takes questions. At the end, the summarisers conclude and defend the opinions of their group.
3. Reflect on the debate as a class.