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Starting next month Yuyuan Gardens will use 24-hour camera surveillance as a means to catch and punish litterers. The gardens will employ 2 full-time peeping toms-- ahem, security officials-- to watch livereels from the 23 cameras installed strategically among Yuyuan’s 5 acres.
Though the efficacy of video surveillance is frequently called into question, the technique is an increasingly popular one, with the UK adopting a 1:14 citizen-to-camera ratio and severals states in the U.S. poised to join in. And of course, Shanghai's neighbors to the north have plenty of experience with the phenomenon (upper left corner).
In an annoying fluke of language (or ironic twist of fate, depending on your outlook), the international jargon for closed-circuit television (the kind used for surveillance) happens to be CCTV.
Shanghai Daily: Cameras to Catch out Litterbugs
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I'm just waiting for someone to invent a pocket-sized EMP emitter to randomly screw with the cameras.
nanheyangrouchuan
The sad part of all this is that given the local culture and history, hell, probably across much of asia actually, it often takes such direct measures to change the behavior of the masses. This is taking a page directly out of Singapore's guide to the modern world (a la Urine Sensors in the lifts -elevators for those Yanks that don't understand?) We may not like it as it offends our western sense of privacy, but it may just take enforcement tools like this to make it change happen.