The introduction of Closed Circuit Televisions(CCTV) has changed people’s lifestyle these days. Some think that due to the installation of CCTVs, crime rates are decreased significantly especially in high crime areas, while other believe that it causes the problem of the invasion of the privacy.
When it comes to the advantages of CCTVs, CCTVs are the key to reducing crime rates because CCTVs are installed everywhere nowadays, making future-criminals reluctant to commit a crime. To be specific, under the surveillance of CCTVs, people have tendency to follow the social rules and laws with the thinking that they will be captured if they commit an offence since CCTVs are recording everything they do. Also, these cameras help to reduce the police officers’ workload since they don’t have to patrol everywhere due to the cameras.
Despite of these benefits, there are several drawbacks of the installation of CCTVs. Surveillance cameras are operating 24 hours and 7 days and are installed anywhere, so people are naturally exposed to the recordings, feeling they are being watched without any faults. Not only that, the data collected by the cameras can be used illegally without any consent, resulting in severe invasion of privacy. For example, the number of psychological patients who suffer from the fear of being captured by cameras has increased steadily since the introduction of CCTVs, causing the rise of social medical care costs.
In conclusion, it is undeniable that the way of people’s living has changed a lot due to CCTVs, while these cameras have both pros and cons. CCTVs make our community more safer by preventing people from commiting crimes, but we need to establish strict regulations on using the data collected by the cameras, avoiding the problem of privacy invasion.