They've been around for years. I think they even won an award for 'worst promotion concept ever' from Private Eye magazine.
It's really all about advertising the new camera systems they installed on Buses and Tubes, after a boy was stabbed to death on the Bus and it turned out the onboard camera was empty. It was supposed to re-install confidence into passengers about travelling late at night on the bus, but, quite frankly, they could have put the words 'Mein Kampf' on that poster and it would have had much the same impact.
Yeah, but since when are CCTV cameras on buses and trains A-OK? The point is not the atrocious advertising*, but rather the fact that there is something to advertise. From everything I've heard about the plague of "anti-social behaviour" coming from the UK, I get the impression that surely you must have roaming gangs of armed psychopaths shooting everyone on sight. Maybe it's just something that British politness and sensibility fail to grasp, but people are often violent. They get hurt, they get mugged, they get drunk and have a brawl. And sometimes they die. Every large city, even in Sweden, has its crime problems. That's life. And monitoring your citizens like ants or children isn't the solution. There is such a thing as an acceptable level of violence in society, and I can't imagine that a modern, civilized country like the UK has exceeded that threshold enough to warrant George-****ing-Orwell. I think the public's acceptance of such intrusive measures may have to do with the prevailing attitude that someone so much as looking at you sideways is a horrific and utterly unacceptable breach of safety and must be dealt with at any cost. What happened to you guys? You survived the Blitz, but a few Chavs have forced you into adopting a police/nanny state out of fear.
*actually, it's very clever. The ad agency created a clearly subversive ad and managed to get it approved - kudos and thanks to them.
I'm more bothered about CCTVs' prevelance in public areas than transit, myself. Any ticketed system of travel offers the capability to track people, but it's not too meaningful as surveillance in public transport because you're using fixed point-to-point links; it's the ability to track people
outside that bus stop or train station that opens up the can of worms for me.
Why won't the British take a stand? I mean, isn't there some kind of outrage? Some kind of "leave my business to be my business" attitude?
Akin to it, but bear in mind this is an advert only seen - AFAIK - in the metropolitan area. There are several caveats worth remembering - namely that the majority of any population tend to be ill-educated sheep, and the context of this poster (that Flip pointed out). There is an ongoing debate about the level of CCTV et al in the UK going on, and there have been a few recent stories from important watchdog people warning about the loss of privacy; but ultimately the problem is that this stuff is portrayed as tackling the 'scum' of society, and it's not politically expedient for the main opposition parties to get too mouthy over it.
Anyways, for sinister see the benefit cheat ads;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKWtife5BqA, or the TV licence ones.
I'm always astonished they get away with those ones....
