Mal Fletcher comments on the use of CCTV cameras and Tesco's announcement that they will soon be using face detection software

So, it is CCTV with added commercial advantages - advantages that are stacked firmly in favour of the corporate entity.

As a Social Futurist, I predicted the possible use of miniature camera technology in this way some years ago, as did others in the field.

Yet doing something just because it can be done, without considering longer term ramifications or adding safeguards, is a recipe for mayhem.

Some might argue that the demographic information gathered by the OptimEyes system is much the same as the data already collected using existing customer surveys.

However, when it comes to using CCTV as a de facto marketing tool, there are two important differences. Firstly, the customer is not given the option of refusing to provide information, or to opt out of the 'survey' or conversation.

Short of wearing a bag over one's head, there's not much one can do to avoid a well-placed CCTV camera near a checkout counter.

Second, this practice represents yet another example of a technology that is used to 'watch' the public in ways that were neither envisaged or sanctioned when the technology was introduced.

Without being paranoid about the prospect of Big Brother getting in on the act, this is a concern in the age of Big Data.

For the first time in history, governments and large corporations have access to the type of computing power needed to analyse the billions of bytes of information recorded using mobile devices, including CCTV cameras.

Companies already buy into Big Data services to track consumer trends, but the possibility of the same technology being used to track behaviour in a more sinister way are real.

Originally, CCTV was introduced to help reduce crime - particularly violent crime.

The school is still out on whether or not it does in fact reduce crime and there is even more doubt as to whether it prevents crime.

One report I saw suggested that only around three percent of violent crimes are solved using CCTV. This may be a low estimate, but the fact remains that CCTV is not the great boon to crime-fighting that was first promised us in the 1980s.

EU figures from 2009 showed that despite having more CCTV cameras per capita than any other European nation, the UK also had the highest rate of violent crime.