At last we appear to be nearing the truth about the effectiveness of CCTV. After senior police officers suggested, a few years back, that CCTV had no substantial impact on crime, a research group funded by the Home Office has established that vast spending on systems is almost certainly unjustified.

As Alan Travis reports, the review of 44 research studies on CCTV found that they do have a modest impact on crime overall, but CCTV cameras are at their most effective in cutting vehicle crime in car parks, especially when used alongside improved lighting and the introduction of security guards.

So, there are some benefits, as most acknowledged, but the idea that CCTV has any special power to reduce crime generally is clearly flawed. Travis notes that the investigation by a group including Cambridge criminologist David Farrington was cited by the Home Office in their response to an important report from the House of Lords constitution committee that suggested the spread of CCTV undermined fundamental rights guaranteed by the Human Rights Act.

It is now becoming clear that the £500m spent by local councils on the CCTV in the decade up to 2006 has been on surveillance of the innocent public rather than crime prevention. As I pointed out last week, it may not be long before these cameras can be connected and upgraded with facial recognition technology.

What we need now is a new national surveillance commission, where spending of public money on CCTV is weighed against the loss of privacy and the threat to the public from likely technological developments. It would cost a fraction of the money being wasted on elaborate systems and in the end save a great deal.