The people you visited probably had nothing but the best of intentions. But to expect all those other thousands with similarly elevated privileges to behave similarly as such would be..short sighted indeed.

I agree, it's not easy to get right. But this is a general problem of Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Two things that are protective in the CCTV case are:

- Policy: having police and CCTV operated separately is protective - both have to collude for things to go badly, like any government separation of powers.

- Technology: one example of this is the cameras had preprogrammed "no-dwell" zones - areas the pan/tilt/zoom of the camera is not allowed to stay in (e.g. windows of residential buildings). Although this could be overridden, there was an operational log where such overrides had to be justified, which feed back into oversight policy above. (They demoed this, then had to write into a logbook that they had done so.)

In general, CCTV is a force multiplier, but not excessive - the council could pay people to stand around in the street taking notes for example. The use of unmitigated ANPR with permanent recording – that is something else.

> I toured the council CCTV office where I live, and was impressed by the fact (well, claim) that it was operated by council employees, not police officers (seemed true), and that the police could ask them to look out for things or for footage, but any kind of operational use by the police required high-level authorisation (the reverse wasn't true; as the parent indicates, the CCTV operators can and do alert the police to crimes and direct them to the perpetrators.)

> That reassured me it couldn't at that point be used as a dragnet.

Who gave you the tour? How do you know those procedures are followed? Is there any reliable oversight on what they actually do?

There are many cases of procedures like that not being followed. In fact, most organizations I've worked in, in any field, have a difficult time following procedures.

Police and courts are usually pretty chummy with each other, how does that not apply to council employees and local police departments funded by such councils?

UK police departments are not funded by councils. They are funded in two ways: A precept issued to council tax collection authorities, and grants from the Home Office.

Note that the precept is set by the police, not by the council - the councils have no authority over police spending.

>UK police departments are not funded by councils. //

When council tax has an earmarked additional portion specifically noted to be for police funding I think you're clutching at semantics. UK Police are in part funded from council tax garnishing, a precept as you say.

Where I am at least [in the UK] the police commissioner details a request based on a proposed budget which is put to a panel "the police and crime panel" which sit to set the funding that will be made. The panel comprises members of the local councils and they must vote as to whether to endorse an agreed budget and so collect the tax to pay for it.

The distinction you seem to be making doesn't appear to be there. The police and council set the budget between them effectively, councillors having veto powers, the council collect the money as part of council tax.