The Government announced today that it is to reassess its use of closed-circuit television systems. The news comes only weeks after it was announced the UK was the "most recorded nation ever, ever".
An unprecedented number of petitions were handed in to 10 Downing St in October, somewhere in the region of 27. The two that were not misplaced or inadvertently shredded by civil servants pleaded with Gordon Brown to reduce the number of CCTV cameras monitoring the British public.
Darren Foundling, creator of one of the petitions, said he had no other choice than to fight for the nation's right to privacy when he discovered the true extent of CCTV coverage.
"I was between jobs so decided to get a job monitoring CCTV footage in my home town, Nantwich", he explained. "I was shown how to operate the system, which was fairly straightforward.
"What surprised me was the footage I was required to view. It was of me. There was a camera behind me in the surveillance office, pointing right at me. As I looked around at the other workers I noticed a few of them were also studying a live feed of the back of their heads."
When Mr. Foundling asked what the point of this exercise was, his supervisor explained that "there's so many people monitoring footage that we need people to monitor the people monitoring the footage."
Mr. Foundling tendered his resignation instantly, and went home. "I went straight on to the internet when I got home and downloaded a template petition. The rest is history."
The second and last remaining petition was filed by the creators of Big Brother, Endemol. A spokesperson for the production company told The Spoof that they were unhappy with recent viewing figures. "More and more people are getting tired with Big Brother, it just isn't real enough for them. Instead, people are getting jobs monitoring CCTV footage to get their daily fill of reality television. This just has to stop."
The Government is still in the preliminary stages of examining the national surveillance network and did not wish to comment at such an early stage.
A 24-hour live video feed of officials discussing the predicament is expected to be streamed on 10 Downing St's website over the coming weeks to keep the public informed of its decisions.
