Freelance Security Guard (CCTV Watch)

It is no secret that the number of surveillance cameras (CCTV) on the streets, in office buildings, and stores is growing exponentially. In an ordinary supermarket there are about a dozen, and in hyper, the number of CCTV can reach hundreds. The problem here is how to carefully analyze the picture from all these cameras. Even the genius of multitasking is not able to closely monitor a dozen monitors at the same time.

English company Internet Eyessolved this problem creatively and in the spirit of modern times: they use crowdsourcing. Anyone can register on the site and after presenting the documents to engage in the analysis of CCTV video in real time. Users receive a reward depending on the number of viewed materials (hourly pay). However, there is a catch: remuneration almost does not cover the cost of a subscription to a service (a paid subscription was introduced at the request of the authorities, see details below), so it’s unlikely to make money this way. However, the most active "overseer" by the end of the month has the right to a reward of 1,000 pounds ($ 1,589).

A typical occupation of a “remote security guard” is to watch customers in stores and ensure that there is no theft of goods. Each user looks at four screens and presses the “Alert” button if he sees something suspicious. SMS and a picture from the camera instantly arrive at the store manager who owns this surveillance camera, and he estimates the level of threat on a three-point scale (these points are needed to compile a user rating, the winner of which for the month receives 1,000 pounds).

Human rights activists are already sounding the alarm and demanding an end to the vicious practice of voyeurism. According to them (and according to the current CCTV regulations ), only specially trained people should be engaged in such monitoring in the UK.

According to human rights activists, theoretically, users can record video from CCTV and upload it to file-sharing networks. And in general, they say, the project of "civil spies" is immoral: if people want to fight crime, they must contact the police. Here they hide behind computer screens and look forward to crime in order to earn money.

The privacy threat has been worried at the UK Office of the Information Commissioner . It was this organization that forced the introduction of mandatory document verification and a paid subscription, although initially the project was conceived as free for users.

Businessmen and crowdsourcing advocates themselves insist that everything is absolutely legal here. And what kind of abuse can we talk about if you can find a working webcam on almost every street through Google? And here the “spies” bring real benefits to society and fight crime. Some users of the service say that they did not register for the sake of possible earnings, but in particular to fight crime, because their civic duty requires it.