In Britain, 4.2 million cameras (one for thirteen inhabitants) record what people do in most places, private or public. This network what has often been named "Big Brother", in reference to George Orwell's book Nineteen Eighty Four on the spying of citizens by the state in a dictatorship, does not seem to help fight crime according to Mr Neville, a senior police officer in charge of monitorinig CCTV for Scotland Yard. He said it was "an utter fiasco".

For example, only 3% of crimes have been solved with them in London, which sounds ludicrous especially if you think of the cost of the system.  Moreover, this system called CCTV (Close Circuit TeleVision) was supposed to prevent crime by deterring criminals. The cost amounts to billions of pounds.

There are various reasons for such failure, such as the belief by many people that the cameras do not actually work and record them, but the main cause is the lack of staff to watch the incredibly huge amount

"A typical town centre system will have 200-plus cameras," says Chris Boyce of Camwatch, "and three or four staff on each shift. They probably look at one minute of live coverage from each camera every hour."

The Metropolitan police distanced itself from Mr Neville's comments. "The MPS does not consider that CCTV has failed," a spokesman said.

Britain has the most important surveillance system in the world, according to civil liberty groups and security experts. In some towns, there are even "talking CCTVs" used to reprimand people in the streets when they drop litter on the ground!

Many citizens fear that CCTV could be used by the state to keep watch over the population one day, with a risk of limiting civil liberties.

Here are a few figures on CCTV in Britain:

    * 4.2 Million: the estimated number of CCTV cameras in the UK
    * 32: the number of cameras within 200 yards of the apartment where George Orwell wrote... Nineteen Eighty Four!
    * 500,000: the estimated number of CCTV cameras in private homes in London
    * 20: the number of areas in the UK that have talking CCTV
    * 500,000: the number of cameras going to be used to police the London 2012 Olympics