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Citizens use YouTube to keep gov't in check
Watching the watchers

By Nick Heath

Published: Thursday 31 July 2008

Citizens are used to CCTV surveillance but a parliamentary group says that cameras are being turned on governments to keep them in line.

"Sous-veillance" will see video sharing sites such as YouTube used by citizens to shine a spotlight on things such as deadly hygiene lapses in hospital wards and uncollected rubbish, according to the European Information Society Group (Eurim).

The vision of the "public monitoring the state" and shaming them into action using cameraphones is one of several key ways that Eurim says technology can be used to transform government and empower the public.

Its report says: "New web applications such as YouTube or Patient Opinion enable people to monitor the state and to be heard. People can easily post videos of dirty hospital wards, of uncollected rubbish or of pot holes in the road, to a world-wide audience.

"Sous-veillance might transform political engagement due to its ease of use, by engaging even the time-poor majority and extending citizenship beyond the usual special interest groups."

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It points to the success of the Tidy Oldham project, where residents took photos of problems and "grot spots" on their mobiles to be posted on a dedicated website.

But it warns that the approach does risk airing vendettas against individual public workers, introducing greater budget pressures and distracting from wider public service reforms.

Increasing technology available to public workers can bring similar rewards, the report says, citing cleaner streets in the London borough of Lewisham after refuse collectors were given cameraphones to take pictures of graffiti, vandalism and rubbish.

Eurim warns that simply replacing face-to-face services with internet access risks isolating the services from the most vulnerable, citing examples of the elderly being cut off following bank and post office closures. It suggests that service delivery is streamlined so it is provided using the minimum of different systems necessary to address multiple groups' needs.

It also recommends that transformation of government through technology can be best achieved if external organisations are allowed to compete to deliver services.

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