They seem to have mistaken Orwell's novel for an instruction manual over there.

Private security guards will also be sent round to carry out home checks, while parents will be given help to combat drug and alcohol addiction.

Offering assistance to parents who face substance abuse issues is all well and good, but turning homes into prisons under constant surveillance, complete with guards, seems a wee bit over the top - even for an island populace well-conditioned to having virtually their every move in public monitored.

The article doesn't make clear who is being chosen for this surveillance. Despite the admittedly rather creepy parallels with 1984, I could see this as a viable option for some borderline cases where parents ordinarily would lose custody of their children.

“I could see this as a viable option for some borderline cases where parents ordinarily would lose custody of their children."

You have to be kidding. Who decides who is borderline? Is it the courts, an administrator, a neighbor, a teacher or the police? One they go down that road there is no coming back. Soon everyone is under surveillance.

You have to be kidding. Who decides who is borderline?

Or worse, who gets to decide WHERE the borderline is?

"You have to be kidding. Who decides who is borderline? Is it the courts, an administrator, a neighbor, a teacher or the police?"

Judges make decisions in regard to terminating parental rights every day. The article gives very little info about how and when the technology would be used. Of course the decision could be made that it is never acceptable for the government to place surveillance cameras in a private home under any circumstance. If a family unit had a long history of well documented abuse or neglect, and the judge said "this is your last chance the cameras or else" and the parent consented to it, then I could see where using the cameras might be acceptable. Using cameras on a broad brush basis with troubled families in general because the kid is a delinquent, etc. sounds like bad policy on several levels.