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Home snoop CCTV more popular than Big Brother Mark Ballard The scheme that gave residents of Shoreditch links to local CCTV cameras through their TV sets had better viewing figures than Channel 4's Big Brother, according to an internal report by the local authority's rejuvenation body. The Register has learned how residents took to the Shoreditch Digital Bridge scheme in order to scan for and report anti-social behaviour. Yet the over-arching aim of the project was to bridge the digital divide and improve take-up of online public services by giving TV-internet access to people in poor areas. According to preliminary results of the Shoreditch pilot - due to be published in January - linking people's living-room television sets to local CCTV cameras had attracted viewing figures with an "equivalent reach of prime time, week-day broadcast programming".
Official stats showed that a higher percentage of people tuned in to look through their local CCTV cameras (about 27 per cent of those with access) than watched Channel4's hit snoop show, Big Brother (about 24 per cent). Atul Hatwal, project manager at the Shoreditch Trust, said the CCTV hook-up was the main reason why people wanted to get the Digital Bridge internet access through their televisions. "In focus groups, the biggest thing they said to us was it made them safer, because if you are in a public space you know someone's watching." The Information Commissioner had ordered the homesnoop CCTV be handicapped by low resolution to prevent the watchers from identifying the people they were watching. "You couldn't recognise specifics, but you could see if there was trouble happening or if someone was roaming about. It made people feel safer," said Hatwal. Indeed, residents were bothered by the restriction and not at all worried what implications the scheme might have for civil liberties or community. "Not a single resident came back and raised [CCTV] as an issue," he said. "It was the defining thing that made people say, 'Oh yes, I want that', and they wanted to see more detail [in the CCTV images]."
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