Opt in with the <new> bureaux and get a tax break

Currently CCTV systems in the UK are a disparate mix. Official systems are predominantly based in town crime hotspots. Rural areas and suburbs are mostly left to fend for themselves.

Give the individual householder a straightforward opportunity to opt into this scheme by knocking of 17.5% VAT off the price of exterior cameras and time lapse kit. Take a require small/diddy percentage to fund a CCTV database held centrally that will be trawled when those nasty little crimes take place in your neighbourhood. A phone call to the bureaux by the police would then guarantee crime-solving evidence within hours.

Privacy issues would be irrelevant as CCTV is bought privately and used at the moment. All the scheme does is save hours of door to door knocking by bobbies.

Given the opportunity to opt-in to this scheme, citizens could make their neighbourhoods “crime free” in weeks.

Just a UK thought after reading SteveGroofs public CCTV idea. Boring I know but it might just do the job.
-- andrewuk, Jan 25 2002

UK Crime Rates (for Guncrazy) http://www.guardian...2763,581234,00.html
However will we protect ourselves in this latest upswing? [Monkfish, Jan 28 2002, last modified Oct 21 2004]

A friend of mine has his home CCTV cameras hooked up to a web camera server, and he's got a leased circuit etc.. so the whole things on the 'net.. Wherever he is in the world, he can nip into a web cafe and have a look at who's on his doorstep, burgling his house etc.. Nice. but not that useful.

Is anybody else worried about the fact that almost every crime committed seems to be caught, to some degree on CCTV. And they say ID cards are an invasion of privacy..
-- Gran Tade, Jan 25 2002


Interesting points.. Most brits don`t seem to mind this sort of tech because it means there is less chance of them being robbed or burgled. As for the neighbours house having cameras on their gateway.. it happens already but in not such an organised way.
-- andrewuk, Jan 26 2002


Big Bro' on White Horse is near.
-- thumbwax, Jan 27 2002


We generally don't have these systems in use in residental areas in the UK although some homes are covered in the viewing range of CCTV cameras. There was a famous case of a webcam installed in the house next to Micheal Portillo (a pompus right-wing politician) to watch his house but this was removed pretty sharpish. (I'll look for a link)

However I'm pretty unsure that removing VAT from CCTV equipment would be much of an incentive (it's only 17.5%) and that such an incentive is wise anyway.
-- Aristotle, Jan 27 2002


Off topic, but I just have to shake my head at the casual way you say a tax is "ONLY 17.5%".

At any rate, I doubt that CCTV would help reduce the number of crimes being perpetrated in the UK. Despite their increasing pervasiveness, crime is on the upswing, anyway.
-- Guncrazy, Jan 27 2002


Residents of a village a few miles from me put up signs saying "This is a neighbourhood watch area". Someone stole the signs.
-- angel, Jan 28 2002


Guncrazy: I don't consider tax to be theft. It's as simple as that.
-- Aristotle, Jan 28 2002


Been a long time away... someone stole our "This is a neighbourhood watch area" signs too. lol
-- andrewuk, Nov 22 2004



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