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Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Citizen-run neighbourhood CCTV networks


I was contacted this week with my work hat on by a new outfit called Jabbakam. Founder James Wickes set up the company to "put power in the hands of everyday people by combining internet camera technology with social networking."

Wickes differentiates his technology from CCTV. He calls it "CCTV for all" or CMTV and explains that this is "socially-organised video surveillance technology over the internet which is more efficient, more reliable and cheaper than traditional CCTV."

Developed following Wickes' personal experience of crime, his system is primarily aimed at the home/neighbourhood security market. However, Wickes points to other uses including monitoring wildlife, vulnerable pets, traffic, weather or remote scientific or industrial outposts.

The £60 camera together with a monthly fee of between £6 and £14 a month gives you motion sensitive equipment that will send you alerts if you want it to and allow you to share your footage as you wish. You can access and control it via mobile and connect to a growing network of Jabbakam customers who help each other out. Some are even starting to build local CMTV networks.

This is an interesting development with fairly self-evident upsides and downsides. Is it a scary spread of the CCTV nation into private hands or a reassuring additional layer of home and neighbourhood safety.

And what of the other uses of the cameras? A HoL SainsJamCam? A flytip watch channel?

The company have offered us two cameras for free to see what we could do with them. Anyone interested?

Website: www.jabbakam.com

Tags for Forum Posts: cctv

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Hugh on June 22, 2011 at 22:54

Ok, I'm not surprised that initial reactions are discomfort with this. Used as a scatter-gun tool, I too have enough discomfort that I would want to think/talk through before endorsing it used in this way. But let's suppose for a minute that I'd been burgled a few times or regularly had my car or garden vandalised. I'm quite sure I'd welcome this cheap and apparently effective protection.

So, I wonder if we ought to welcome the technology but start thinking about the possible need for controls on how it is used to counter irresponsible use and protect people's privacy.

And I'm still taken by the as yet to be unmasked potential these cameras might have at a neighbourhood level unrelated to crime. I feel it's there but am not managing to surface it.

james walshPermalink Reply by james walsh on June 23, 2011 at 0:03
One of the unforseen consequences of CCTV is to drive 'low level street crime' vandalism, car theft etc to residential streets without CCTV that would normally be free from this type of crime. You could say that CCTV displaces crime but does not prevent it.
Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on June 23, 2011 at 9:49
Hugh, my reaction was not discomfort - just outright outraged rejection! As for controls, surely the best control would be strangulation at birth or preferably at conception, but probably a bit late for that.
Permalink Reply by Danzigger on June 23, 2011 at 14:12

Yes, but, no, but....

Granted, there's too much CCTV and it is poorly regulated (if at all) and it represents and infringement of civil liberties ... I get that.

But if we as a community have a particular problem in a particular place, caused by illegal behaviour that the police or the council can't or won't stop, then why shouldn't record it and use the footage to end the problem, or at least prosecute people causing the problem?

Is my right to walk down my street more important than the right to prosecute people dumping building waste there?

CCTV may not prevent crime, but if we used it to successfully prosecute just one violent mugger then isn't that a result?

We've had a video of red-light jumpers on HOL, and photos tracking fly-tipped builders waste. What's the difference?

Or we could do a Harringay Springwatch.

Permalink Reply by John McMullan on June 23, 2011 at 17:36
The difference is that a person took the videos. I have no problem with that.
Permalink Reply by Hugh on June 23, 2011 at 18:16
Can you expand on that fine line, J?
Permalink Reply by John McMullan on June 23, 2011 at 20:17

The problem with CCTV is proliferation and disconnection. There IS someone somewhere looking at the CCTV coverage whom you do not know and cannot see. Now if we all walked around with video cameras stuck to our heads like Adrian does I wouldn't have a problem with that but with CCTV there is someone, somewhere, in a room watching TV monitors of someone's every move and that is very, very creepy.

Permalink Reply by Danzigger on June 23, 2011 at 20:45

I agree - but I think there's a difference between the indiscriminate, constant surveillance of, say, a shopping mall, and the targeted surveillance of a particular area with a particular problem.

If I set up a camera in the passage, and go back to that footage if and when there has been an incident of fly tipping, is that still creepy? I find it reassuring that previously undetectable crime might become detectable and preventable.

I'm playing devils advocate here - I'm not at all sure that I want to live in a society where my every move is recorded and preserved - but I also don't want to live in a society which effectively condones a lot of criminal and anti-social activity because it finds it too hard to catch and prosecute the offenders.

Permalink Reply by John McMullan on June 23, 2011 at 20:58
What will the cameras be used for when the crimes stop?
Permalink Reply by Danzigger on June 23, 2011 at 21:09

I don't know. If the crime stopped there would be no reason to review the footage.

What if the footage was wiped at the end of any 24hr period during which nothing had been fly-tipped in the passage?

Permalink Reply by John McMullan on June 23, 2011 at 21:29

Fiddling around the edges...

Let's say the person responsible found something noteworthy but not criminal. Perhaps his mate's daughter kissing a boy she was supposed to have broken up with. Pointing the camera and clicking the button is what I want to see. Just moving the camera or clicking the "don't delete" button is not good enough.

Permalink Reply by Danzigger on June 23, 2011 at 23:41

"The person responsible" is the key phrase here, I think. I'd have no qualms with Liz, for example, monitoring fly-tipping in the passage. Or you, John. And if someone with an established interest in the topic set up a dog-shit-cam in Finsbury Park, and used it exclusively for the purpose of naming and shaming lazy dog walkers, I'd be happy with that too. Using the footage to report on an individuals private affairs is an obvious breach of trust. But the potential for breach of trust shouldn't rule out a community led CCTV system.

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