Dialogue: Voyeurs capture our every move

In an era where many complain about less time, more pressures and reprioritising schedules, it's ironic that we still seem to have found time for voyeurism.

It's more than just lapping up intrusive, grainy photos of the rich and famous taken by the long-lensed paparazzi who are then written off as scumbags. While we love escapist entertainment, these days spying and snooping are even better when the subjects are ordinary.

We are used to security cameras catching our every move in shops and petrol stations. Equally commonplace is the existence of hidden cameras, which have nailed light-fingered staff and, even, a sexually predatory doctor. And remember the camera planted in the loo to catch out the errant drug-taking employee?

But spying devices are not just about gathering evidence against criminals. They also aid in people's uncanny fixation with watching the ordinary lives of other people.

A current affairs snippet last week highlighted the obsession with reality television. We assume fly-on-the-wall status while normal people cope in abnormal situations (Survivor and Treasure Island) but can also be equally interested in the dull and predictable world of, say, students living in a flat. This is not exactly Rear Window type viewing. Most of the daily dramas of normal people are pedestrian and routine but still we like to watch. The Truman Show and Ed TV are two movies that parody the new consumer, insatiable, voyeuristic appetite for the lives of the ordinary.

Neither hero was particularly interesting but there was always the hope that something dramatic might happen and, if not, something can easily be planted to spice it up.

Overseas, spy shops do a roaring trade with their hidden cameras and other covert spying devices. While their "nanny cam" (to catch out errant baby sitters) products could lead to a criminal conviction, most spying these days seems strictly recreational. It's less about fulfilling our exciting James Bond and Mata Hari fantasies and far more about our fascination and nosiness when it comes to watching others whose lives are as boring as our own.

Fuelling our new love of spying is the internet and those smart individuals who've used it to rewrite the concept of how to get rich quick.

The first entrepreneurial teenager who struck on the idea of placing a camera in her bedroom for international voyeurs to watch her, hit the jackpot. This pseudo peepshow was on a pay-per-view basis. It was just the luck of the draw whether you logged on as she was taking her top off, versus listening to music.

And close on her heels, and again creaming the royalties, was the first woman who gave birth live on the internet to the apparent delight of international voyeurs.

Then there's the fixation with private investigators whom one can readily employ if you suspect your spouse is playing around. A decade ago hiring a PI seemed a fanciful notion - the term referring to fictional TV characters such as Hawaiian hunk Magnum. But now we have many local private investigators including a local, self-taught dynamic mother-and-daughter duo who operate in a variety of disguises, skulk around hotel lobbies and are paid voyeurs collecting trivial information.

We can even spy on our own kids - with childcare centres considering video cameras and linked websites for ad hoc parental viewing.

What a sad and pointless exercise. Those parents who genuinely want to view their kids playing may wish to consider staying home and observing the real thing.

Those who want to spy to "put their minds at rest" are asking only for trouble. Kid-cam is bound to raise more concerns than it will alleviate. Sometimes what we don't know won't hurt us. How much control can you really have when you have left your precious ones in someone else's care?

And one must ask if we are spying on the right people. It's not the daycare centres that should have the precautionary surveillance device but the homes of the many suspected child-abuse victims.

Here we are in the future and it's not only Big Brother watching us, it's the bloke next door, the ex-wife and some kid's parent.

Meanwhile, Big Brother is looking over his own shoulder with even the world of politics littered with scurrilous snooping.

And one is left asking - haven't we got anything better to do?