Just think – this could be your living room

Anyone who owns a laptop computer can now fight crime from the safety of their home and win cash prizes for catching thieves red-handed, under a new British monitoring scheme that went live this week.

The service works by employing an army of registered armchair snoopers who watch hours of CCTV footage from cameras in stores and high street venues across the country.

Viewers can win up to 1,000 pounds in cash a month from Devon-based firm Internet Eyes, which distributes the streaming footage, when offenders are caught in the act…

Participants, who pay a fee to subscribe, press an “alert” button which relays an instant text message notifying a shop keeper of suspicious behavior. The SMS is followed up with a photographic image of the potential crime…

“The problem with CCTV is that while cameras are practically everywhere, there’s hardly anyone watching them in real time,” Tony Morgan said. “Most people know this, so CCTV is no longer the deterrent it used to be, and crime is rising…”

The government’s Information Commissioner’s Office says the firm is being made to comply with data protection laws and has also insisted on background checks on viewers employed by the site…

The director of…Big Brother Watch said it was a worrying development akin to “pimping out” CCTV images to amateur bounty hunters and should be switched off…

“Whatever one thinks of our surveillance culture, we can all agree that the technology is better off in the hands of trained, accountable professionals rather than voyeurs.”

Since I live in a part of the world that offers reality TV shows to bounty hunters, I think I’d fit in just fine.

The article says nothing about turning away voyeurs in New Mexico, USA.