NSW Police ask public to be cameraphone cops

Vikram draws attention to a move to encourage citizens to capture crimes on their cellphones and send the information to the police in NSW. Although increasing the surveillance society normally makes me very uneasy and the police forces across the ditch (and here in NZ) are not always noted for their probity, I think that this is a step in the right direction. This is a step up from the well established 111 (911, 999 ...) call with better information content. The French have laws against recording violent crime unless you are a professional journalist which seems a bit repressive, even for the Europeans, but there is a measure of sense in this. How about encouraging a society where it is normal to report crime to the legitimate enforcement authorities rather than publish for a dubious or prurient purpose? There is a problem however with the general capture storage of surveillance material ... Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?