No matter on what reason, whether it is the supermarket boss installing small cameras to see what the employees are doing or the Ministry for State Security systematically monitoring all the people to make the existence of their regime possible, sometimes surveillance just goes into the wrong direction. The fact that most of us know about the NSA affair, but continue to use insecure and monitored online services states that we simply do not care enough to change something. Or are we just too lazy or too uninformed? Are security agencies working efficient? Or are they just looking through our Facebook chats and browser history?.
Surveillance is not a modern world problem. Even in Ancient Rome major political players had their own surveillance networks to provide them with information about the schemes of those in power. In fact, Caesar may have known about the conspiracy that culminated in his assassination. Even the best spy network sometimes cannot stop a dagger. But often the amount of information collected is too high to act preventive, which is also a reason for many people to be against surveillance. Not to prevent crimes, but to help solving them is the UK's plan. With over 5 million closed-circuit television cameras, or one for approximately 11 citizens, in use, the UK has got the most CCTV cameras in the world per head. To be fair, the amount of crimes decreased about 21% in surveillanced areas in comparison to non-surveillanced places, which is good in many ways. So in many peoples opinion, CCTV proved its raison d'être.
On the one hand there is the legal aspect; Maybe you are thinking: "If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.?". But this statement totally neglects the fact that in a democracy, people have the right to anonymity and privacy, even in public places. The EU data would enable the retracing of who contacted whom via telephone, mobile phone or e-mail for a period of 6 to 24 months.
