It's a matter of keeping up with the neighbors.

A fairly recent Technology Review article on "privacy" reported that, per capita, London has more surveillance cameras than any other location in the (known) world - and they appear to be all operated by the 'phone company under contract to the "security administration" (I think that means the cop shop), giving the police the "contractual right" to "see" anything that is or has been on camera. (???)

Maybe it's just the "all the guys in the club need the same toys" thing.

Several U.S. cities/counties have been "tracking" cell phones to assess traffic density and flow - and to adjust signals accordingly. To tell how fast traffic is moving, they've got to stay "on" an individual conversation long enough to tell how far it moves - but of course they don't "personally identify" the speakers(????).

I wonder if they have to pick up on the subject of conversation to tell that they've stayed with the same phone. (???)

For about $95 (US) at my local lumber yard, you can get your own video surveillance camera and monitor - and for about $350 (US) you can get the "rf" model that radios the signal from camera to monitor so they can't follow the wire back to you. For under $500 (US) you can have the "rf" model with five camera switching.(???)

("Concealable" cameras, about the size of an AA battery, are $75 or so each, but don't get a very good picture.)

And then we've all got the supermarket card.

John