Remember that big, 15-member hit squad that assassinated Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh? They were on camera for most of the time they were on the job, walking in and out of hotels, getting picked up on cameras at the airport. No one still knows who they are and they couldn’t have stopped them. It was dead tape until something happened.
As my hero Bruce Schneier says: CCTV cameras don’t work. He writes:
Cameras afford a false sense of security, encouraging laziness when we need police to be vigilant.
Casinos need cameras because they have money at stake. Shops need cameras because they have shoplifters to concern themselves with. But in general CCTVs aren’t a deterrent nor are they a valuable tool. For every criminal caught by a CCTV camera there are hundreds of thousands that go undetected. They’re a waste of money.