THE ROAD TO SOUTHEND PIER. By Ross Clark. 168pp. Harriman House. Pounds 9.99 -
978 1 905641 44 4.
Britain contains 4.2 million CCTV cameras: one for every fourteen people, putting the nation a global third behind China and Malaysia. The Road to Southend Pier apparently documents Ross Clark's attempt to travel fifty miles south from his home in East Anglia without being caught on any of these cameras, or indeed leaving any mobile phone trail, bank transactions or other "means for officialdom to detect that I had ever left". A camera placed on the pier quickly thwarts Clark's endeavour, and it is soon apparent that The Road to Southend Pier is not about his journey, but rather the ubiquity and utility of surveillance in Britain today.
Clark points out that, irrespective of "debate on . . . the spectre of Big Brother", surveillance needs to be effective and "worth the money".
Northampton's network of CCTV cameras has seen heavy investment over the past five years, but reported crimes have risen and the clear-up rate has fallen.
That 3.6 per cent of Britons were victims of a crime in 2000, a figure second only to Australia, after CCTV had consumed "three quarters" of the Home Office's crime prevention budget at points in the 1990s, "is hardly a ringing endorsement" - though Clark is not entirely clear about his figures. In 2004, Melbourne dismantled its CCTV network, citing its ineffectiveness at preventing crime.
Clark goes on to discuss DNA databases, supermarket loyalty schemes and other more or less stealthy impingements on our privacy. He deems ID cards expensive and of uncertain purpose, DNA fingerprinting prone to error, and laments the fact that information now required by US Immigration does much to inhibit spontaneous travel to the country. While these erosions of our civil liberties need pointing out, and the vision of a future where shops tailor food to our genetic preferences is unsavoury, Clark's objectivity is belied by some peculiar gripes. Old passports were "stiff", new ones are "floppy", and antisocial behaviour is engaged in by "skinheads". Important facts are given unsourced, and any positive achievements of surveillance are glossed over or ignored. Clark's lack of scientific rigour weakens what is otherwise a timely and important book, because, on balance, he is probably right.
