Long live the litter lout snitches!

Most of us are, I think, temperamentally opposed to the idea of a society in which we are surveilled 24/7. We look at the proliferation of Ring doorbells, the thickets of CCTV cameras that capture our every trip to the shop from multiple angles, the algorithmic harvesting of our data by every website we use to shop, to exchange messages with friends, or to scour the wisdom of the internet for information, and we give a slight shudder of revulsion.  

We are put in mind of the grim grey men in headphones listening in on bugged conversations for the Stasi in the grim grey film The Lives of Others. We look down the road to China, with its sinister social credit systems and its enthusiasm for biometrics. We think: yuk. We are not a nation, we think with a mild but palpable swelling of pride, of curtain-twitchers, looky-loos, busybodies and snitches. 

How then, are we to respond to the proposal by Buckinghamshire council to invite drivers to use their dashcam footage to dob in fly-tippers and vehicular litter-louts? With more sympathy, apparently, than we might expect from the above.