Campaigners against a ‘Big Brother’ nation are concerned about a council’s decision to use a mobile CCTV camera to tackle problem parking areas.
They say that Bedford Borough Council is effectively ‘snooping’ on motorists and collecting ‘vast amounts of data about law-abiding people’.
The council has defended the equipment saying that it will be used to crack down on nuisance parking and help improve road safety, especially around schools.
Its move follows a number of injuries to pupils from schools in the borough in the past year. Other problem areas that will be targeted with the CCTV include loading restrictions, yellow lines and bus stops/lanes.
The CCTV camera will be mounted on an existing Bedford Borough Council fleet vehicle and will survey the streets on its travels.
Its initial cost will be £98,250 and it will then cost £42,800 a year to run.
The vehicle will operate by collecting the registration numbers of vehicles parked illegally and processing this information to create Penalty Charge Notices (PCN) for offenders.
“Parents who park responsibly have nothing to worry about and should welcome this protection for their children.”
“The new Coalition Government has announced that ANPR is going to be regulated.
Bedford is throwing public money on a system when it’s not known how or even whether such systems will operate in the future.
“Even worse, the council has made it clear it intends to use surveillance to force drivers to stop using their cars.
“It’s social engineering via snooping.”
