George Orwell, Big Brother Is Watching Your House*

Apr 2st, 2007 8:19 AM

By BOB GRAHAM

The Big Brother nightmare of George Orwell's 1984 has become a reality -
in the shadow of the author's former London home.

It may have taken a little longer than he predicted, but Orwell's vision
of a society where cameras and computers spy on every person's movements
is now here.

According to the latest studies, Britain has a staggering 4.2million
CCTV cameras - one for every 14 people in the country - and 20 per cent
of cameras globally. It has been calculated that each person is caught
on camera an average of 300 times daily.

Use of spy cameras in modern-day Britain is now a chilling mirror image
of Orwell's fictional world, created in the post-war Forties in a
fourth-floor flat overlooking Canonbury Square in Islington, North London.

On the wall outside his former residence - flat number 27B - where
Orwell lived until his death in 1950, an historical plaque commemorates
the anti-authoritarian author. And within 200 yards of the flat, there
are 32 CCTV cameras, scanning every move.

Orwell's view of the tree-filled gardens outside the flat is under
24-hour surveillance from two cameras perched on traffic lights.

The flat's rear windows are constantly viewed from two more security
cameras outside a conference centre in Canonbury Place.

In a lane, just off the square, close to Orwell's favourite pub, the
Compton Arms, a camera at the rear of a car dealership records every
person entering or leaving the pub.

Within a 200-yard radius of the flat, there are another 28 CCTV cameras,
together with hundreds of private, remote-controlled security cameras
used to scrutinise visitors to homes, shops and offices.

The message is reminiscent of a 1949 poster to mark the launch of
Orwell's 1984: 'Big Brother is Watching You'.

In the Shriji grocery store in Canonbury Place, three cameras focus on
every person in the shop. Owner Minesh Amin explained: 'They are for our
security and safety. Without them, people would steal from the shop.
Although this is a nice area, there are always bad people who cause
trouble by stealing.'

Three doors away, in the dry-cleaning shop run by Malik Zafar, are
another two CCTV cameras.

'I need to know who is coming into my shop,' explained Mr Zafar, who
spent £400 on his security system.

This week, the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE) produced a report
highlighting the astonishing numbers of CCTV cameras in the country and
warned how such 'Big Brother tactics' could eventually put lives at risk.

The RAE report warned any security system was 'vulnerable to abuse,
including bribery of staff and computer hackers gaining access to it'.
One of the report's authors, Professor Nigel Gilbert, claimed the
numbers of CCTV cameras now being used is so vast that further
installations should be stopped until the need for them is proven.

One fear is a nationwide standard for CCTV cameras which would make it
possible for all information gathered by individual cameras to be shared
- and accessed by anyone with the means to do so.

The RAE report follows a warning by the Government's Information
Commissioner Richard Thomas that excessive use of CCTV and other
information-gathering was 'creating a climate of suspicion'.

©2007 Associated Newspapers Ltd