"It may be late by more than 20 years, but we are now entering the world of 1984," laments doctor, author and Society of Wilderness chairman Lee Wei-wen on the China Times blog. "Big Brother is everywhere!"

Look up and say hi to yourself in the camera.

Hi, Big Brother!

At present, the police control and monitor more than 105,000 surveillance cameras in Taiwan. These include some 7,000 cameras installed by the public sector in over 3,000 locations, as well as cameras in banks and convenience stores like 7-Eleven. If we include those in commercial buildings and neighborhoods, the number of cameras in Taiwan exceeds 1 million, averaging about one for every 20 people.

Surprisingly, the ever-vigilant, omnipresent Big Brother continues to grow.

In 2008, the Ministry of the Interior launched a program to integrate video surveillance systems in order to promote neighborhood security. The program provides a special annual budget to install more than 40,000 cameras in critical locations for public safety, essentially building an electronic wall. Also, the city of Taipei plans to spend NT$1.6 billion to install 13,000 one-megapixel street cameras, Taichung has earmarked over NT$600 million a year to install more than 6,000 cameras, and Kaohsiung will spend NT$370 million for a 9,000-plus-camera digital surveillance system.

When was it that security cameras started invading our lives?

"They were born of fear," says Bih Herng-dar, an associate professor of the Graduate Institute of Building and Planning at National Taiwan University, writing that after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US, countries like the US and the UK launched "zero tolerance for crime" systems in the name of anti-terrorism. One important measure was widespread installation of surveillance cameras.

Ironically, the United Kingdom, which has always valued individual privacy, happens to be the country with the most security cameras in the world. It's said that there are over 4.2 million cameras in the UK, and each person is captured on video an average of 300 times a day. There is virtually nowhere to hide.

Can't live without them?

Per Article 10 of the Police Authority Enforcement Act, police are authorized to install surveillance cameras in public areas where crimes may occur.

By the end of the year, the National Police Agency (NPA) will spend NT$1.15 billion to install some 2,000 cameras in crime hotspots around Taiwan. These hotspots include places where vehicle accidents frequently occur and recesses of underground walkways.

More and more cameras are being installed, but is public safety really improving?

Yang Zhaoyuan, a staff officer with the NPA's Public Order Division, says that the crime rate is indeed going down (from 1,756 cases per 100,000 in 2004 to 1,192 in 2008, a drop of 32%), but there's no proof it's due to the cameras. But according to the theories of criminology, the presence of cameras can discourage criminal behavior, just as street lights in dark areas do, causing potential criminals to abandon their intentions or driving them to places without cameras.

There is no final word on the preventive effects, but there is a positive relationship between the presence of cameras and people's sense of security.

A survey conducted by TVBS in 2004 shows that more than 80% of the general public believe that cameras are helpful for detecting crime, while only 4% believe they make no difference.

A study in Seoul, South Korea, shows that surveillance cameras greatly boost people's sense of security. The 2005 survey found that over 90% of Seoul residents believed that surveillance cameras were effective in preventing crime, and 72% supported the installation of more cameras.

The police's helper

The eagerness of police departments to install cameras is due to their repeated success in cracking cases. For instance, in major crime cases in Taiwan such as the Fu Jen Catholic University sexual assault case, the rice bomber, the contaminated Wild Bull incident and the Nanhua Township double murder case, cameras were instrumental in solving them.

According to the NPA, in 2008 in Taiwan, cameras helped solve 6,361 criminal cases, compared to 3,715 in 2007, an increase of 71%. Surveillance cameras have become an essential tool for police in handling cases, and police reliance on cameras is growing steadily.

One police officer reveals that when they handle cases now, they listen and watch. First they use phone system records of victims' emergency calls to determine the scene of the crime, then they scrutinize the video recorded by cameras in the vicinity to find possible suspects. If a suspect is not found, they broaden the search to other cameras.

For instance, in March, a vandalism case involving broken glass in Kaohsiung MRT carriages was solved. After police investigated hundreds of video recordings, it was found that, starting in September 2008, MRT carriage windows were broken soon after a car of a certain model passed by. From the partial vehicle registration number seen in videos they were able to identify six possible suspects who drove the same model car. After screening them one by one, they were able to find the perpetrator.

Liberty vs. security

Though surveillance cameras are an important tool for deterring and monitoring crimes, and even searching for disaster victims, we cannot ignore the threat they pose to human rights.

People are usually not aware that they are being monitored. But when the MRT is running, the driver may suddenly announce, "Would the woman in the red dress please refrain from eating." Or when someone runs through the car doors in the last second before they close, we may hear the warning "Do not force your way in when the alarm sounds!" In such a case, we become suddenly aware of the omnipresent, watchful eye of the camera.

Recently, an incident took place in Tainan in which a Ms. Deng complained that a camera on the roof of the borough recreation center was aimed at her balcony, invading her privacy. According to the report, local residents had paid out of pocket to install a camera because someone living on an upper floor had been throwing garbage and dirty water from the building. The camera was pointed upwards, directly at Ms. Deng's balcony.

The questions of whether balconies count as public spaces, whether a surveillance camera monitoring a balcony is an invasion of privacy and who has the right to decide where to point a surveillance camera are still under dispute and litigation. Yet in times when we genuinely need these eyesores to protect our rights, we often learn that they are fake.

After a motorbike theft or household robbery, the first things residents think of is to go to the borough warden's office and look at the camera recording.

Not long ago, some Zhonghe residents complained that a motorbike had been vandalized in front of their house. When the police accompanied them to the borough warden's office to investigate the camera images, they found that four out of five cameras in the neighborhood weren't operational. They weren't broken or vandalized: they were dummy cameras. Like scarecrows in a field, they looked real, but did nothing.

Says Yang Zhaoyuan, neighborhood supervisors and borough wardens could formerly apply to install cameras in the community, but at the start of 2009 funding for installation and repair was cancelled. In other words, unless the borough warden foots the bill himself, a camera, once it breaks down, is nothing more than a theater prop.

Who watches the watchers?

In April, Taiwan Association for Human Rights chairperson Liu Ching-yi wrote to the China Times ("What rights do surveillance cameras violate?"), pointing out that with security cameras being installed on such a massive scale, the first things to be violated are the people's freedoms of expression and association. "When people know that they may be monitored by cameras during a demonstration, it may affect their willingness to participate," she says.

Questions regarding how cameras operated by non-police organizations such as neighborhood and borough administrations are to be managed and who has the right to review the recordings are another major concern.

Says Liu, until the Personal Data Protection Act is finalized and a personal data protection officer system is put in place, there will be a lack of supervision and regulation on the government's collection of personal data.

Yang notes that before presenting evidence at a criminal prosecution, police authorities must follow strict procedures regarding the viewing, management and disposal of surveillance tapes according to the Personal Data Protection Act and the Police Authority Enforcement Act. However, management of civilian and community controlled monitoring systems is in the hands of public and private institutions, so at present it remains unregulated by statutory law.

"Security cameras have from the beginning been a tool for social control by those who hold power," Bih Herng-dar warns us in "Defending Taiwan with a Wall of Cameras?" Government and business surveillance in the name of public order is growing by stages. A life of being watched everywhere by Big Brother is sadly in play in all parts of the world. And though most people are unaware of the surveillance, we can predict that controversy will continue to flare up in the future regarding this issue. The continuing struggle between rights and security as a balance is sought between them is a topic that society will have to grapple with sooner or later.