The Cambridge Panopticon: 20th September 2023 - Someone is always watching you

The city centre end of Hills Road. I do not understand why anyone thinks these excessive surveillance systems are for our benefit. As for the giant alien object that is sticking up above the buildings between Bridge Street and Round Church Street, how much energy is that using up? How much did that cost?
The people responsible expect me to believe they are concerned about "climate change", and reducing energy usage to "save the planet". Yeah, right.
The orange bag clings on though, over a week since I last recorded it....

A good overview of the situation we are in:
S1/E17: Aman Jabbi: The Trojan Horse of the Digital Panopticon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1i3k-zrYWE
"New integrated appearance
Heat mapping, Queue Management, People Counting
4 built-in microphones provide better audio"
https://www.hikvision.com/uk/
There appear to be a ridiculous number of products, although some of them are unavailable:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=hikvision&page=12&ref=sr_pg_11

"IT IS A Chinese state-owned company that is implicated in disturbing human rights violations. But that has not stopped Hikvision from gaining a major foothold in the United Kingdom. Through a network of corporate partners, the Hangzhou-based security firm has supplied its surveillance cameras for use on the British parliamentary estate, as well as to police, hospitals, schools, and universities throughout the country, according to sources and procurement records.
Hikvision, whose technology the U.S. government recently banned federal agencies from purchasing, is generating millions of dollars in annual revenue selling its technology to British companies and organizations. At the same time, it has been helping to establish an oppressive surveillance state in the Xinjiang region of China, where the Uighur ethnic minorities have been held in secret internment camps.
https://theintercept.com/2019/04/09/hikvision-cameras-uk-parliament/

"Mon 21 Sep 2020
Surveillance cameras made by Hikvision, the Chinese company that has been implicated in grave human rights violations and has been blacklisted by the US government, are being used across the UK, from leisure centres in London to school toilets in west Norfolk."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/21/chinese-spy-tech-firm-linked-uighur-abuses-increases-uk-presence

That famous Benjamin Franklin quote:
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety”
https://www.hoover.org/research/what-benjamin-franklin-really-said

And ironically...
https://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famous-liberty-safety-quote-lost-its-context-in-21st-century