A few years ago, I was walking down the street in Rugby, England when I heard a load voice shout "Pick that up!" The voice coming from a loud speaker high up on a lamp post. Some kids were hanging around and one of them had dropped litter. I didn't know until then that the CCTV camera footage was being monitored in real time. This is in the UK and I had thought, naively it seems, that CTV cameras in the street were there to help find missing kids and catch rapists. I abhor litter louts as much as anyone but a surveillance state seems like a bit of a heavy handed approach to keeping the streets clean.
A few months later, I was in a cab in Oslo, Norway. There was a small camera pointed at me throughout the journey. I asked and the driver explained that all cabs have these cameras. The video footage is never looked at unless there's an incident - in which case, relevant footage will be examined. Seems like a great idea to me.
Now you may ask, why am I bothered about a camera in the street but not a camera in the cab? Actually, it's for the same reason that I have a problem with Sarbanes Oxley and the growing cult of transparency.