Does Germany need more (and better) CCTV?
Dear Reader,
I’ve just returned to Berlin from a trip to visit family in the UK, the country of my birth. That visit reminded me of how German I’ve become when it comes to questions of privacy.
The “reverse culture shock” hit me at the British border, where the police officer asked several inconsequential questions about whether I’m “over to see my folks.” What business is it of yours, I thought, before replying with a curt “yes.”
That line of questioning would constitute a serious social transgression in Germany, where people would immediately feel like they were being interrogated without due grounds for suspicion.
In Britain, it is hard to tell whether such questions constitute deliberate observation, or whether the officer was simply indulging in the national past-time of polite small talk.
Once I’d made it past the border police, I was overwhelmed by the level of public surveillance.
At train stations I was reminded to snitch on anyone who looked suspicious. Public safety announcements constantly reminded me: “See it. say it. sorted”. Over a tannoy I was told that CCTV was in place “for your own safety.”
Wherever you go, you are being watched. After finishing off a plate of fish n’ chips at a seaside restaurant I looked up to see a CCTV camera staring back at me from the ceiling.
That sort of intrusiveness is unthinkable in Germany, where data protection laws strictly control where CCTV can be used.
Diverging attitudes to public surveillance on opposite sides of the North Sea mean that London alone has more surveillance cameras than the whole of Germany.
Berlin’s reluctance to go down the path of Big Brother-ism was illustrated nicely by one of the main news stories of the past week - the arrest of a female terrorist who’d been on the run for the past 35 years…
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