Donald Macleod: A videobadge of failure – too many CCTV cameras are watching our every move

I had to laugh when ScotRail announced they were going to kit out their guards with high-tech “videobadge “body cameras.

Funny, only in that you are hard-pressed to find a guard on a train these days, let alone a train that is not overcrowded or, more likely, cancelled.

Its not videobadges for the staff that’s needed, it’s their long-suffering passengers who should be given them – to record just how miserable an experience travelling on ScotRail can be.

The Loco Drives You Loco Daily Video Diary?

That would be a far better use of the estimated £300k ScotFail’s fat controllers will spend on transforming their “strained” staff into Roboguards.

Sadly, as with police and traffic wardens, the introduction of rail staff wearing body cams for their own protection is set to become part of daily life.

A one-way journey towards a cold, inhuman, Big Brother future.

One where our lives will be governed and conditioned within a surveillance society.

Our movements monitored, filmed and stored so no one can ever step out of line, verbally, physically, or in any shape or form and that all types of crime, no matter how slight is captured on camera and judged upon.

There can be no denying that camera surveillance is on the increase, and that is worrying.

I should at this point say I was the first nightclub owner in Scotland to have my security team use them – for their own protection, ironically – much to the consternation of the local constabulary who, at the time, didn’t like the fact they proved my stewards were not being aggressive but actually defending themselves from unprovoked attacks.

Now, however, CCTV cameras cover almost every square inch of the land.

A never ending visual feast for secret snoopers to ogle.

Of course, the fad to film everyone and everything has seen crime and anti-social behaviour drop where it has been deployed.

And that is something to be celebrated, but it only works, when human resources – the police – are deployed to examine and fairly judge the footage.

And here we have a problem because, in most scenarios, that clearly isn’t the happening.

And in particular with regards to Scotrail’s videobadges, there are some serious questions to be answered.

What will happen to all the footage? They say staff will have no access to it and that it will be downloaded remotely at a secure site, but how secure? Who are downloading it? Will it be destroyed after a set period of time? Who will check it has been? Will there be a public record kept of its destruction?

I would like to know the answers before they embark on any snap judgments made on snap shots!

Or has that particular train already left the station?