History Main / UselessSecurityCamera

** In another case from this franchise, an armed robber wore a special raincoat designed to reflect light into and dazzle the security cameras, which showed the suspect's movements only as a vague, glaring-bright blob.

* Some of the surveillance cameras in ''VideoGame/SplinterCellDoubleAgent'' will be turned off on lower difficulties. Occasionally too you'll encounter a non-infrared camera in an area that's too dark for it, rendering it unable to see you (and of course, you can shoot out lights to render some cameras useless too).

* ''VideoGame/Hitman2016'': Destroying the security footage makes all cameras in the level inactive, meaning they no longer spot you and lower your score. The Latter is Completely averted when playing on Professional Mode however, which allows cameras to alert nearby guards if you trespass, often prompting the player to restart.
* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' has one such camera in the entire game outside the Metal Gear Control Room (where the PAL key is used) which is only connected to a monitor in the adjacent room. Unlike every other camera in the game, running into it's viewpoint doesn't cause an alert.

* ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney's'' built for DS case, ''Rise from the Ashes'', features a murder that supposedly occurred in a room with a security camera. That's a conveniently easy stroke of luck... apart from the fact that said camera constantly pans back and forth and therefore misses all the important points. Plus, the camera doesn't show the floor either, which fills the ''entire room'' with blind spots. This is actually pointed out in the game's dialogue and is how [[spoiler:the supposed "victim" managed to get out of the room without being picked up on camera]]. It also doesn't help that a big wooden, maniacal mascot that someone just had to go and place in said room constantly keeps covering up the faces of the people on the video in an almost parodic fashion.

* Statistics show that having a camera deters some crime, and a broken camera that looks functional is cheaper than buying a working one or getting it fixed. Because of this commonly-known fact many businesses install empty casings that look like security cameras.

Of course, even a good camera system can be useless if you've employed a SurveillanceStationSlacker to monitor it.

[[folder:{{Film}}]]
* Joe Darley, Nick Hume's son's murderer in ''Film/DeathSentence'' would probably have gotten a much larger sentence, thus preventing the plot of the movie, if the gas station's camera at the scene of the crime was working.

[[folder:{{Literature}}]]
* In ''Literature/RiversOfLondon'', the first murder is caught on CCTV, but a key event in the lead-up to it, vital to figuring out who did it and why, occurred just outside the camera's field of view.

[[folder: LiveActionTV]]

[[folder:NewspaperComics]]
* In ''ComicStrip/BusStop'', Jason tries to find someone that he knew rode on a specific bus on a specific date, so he gets in touch with the bus company to try to look at their security camera footage. Turns out the bus camera only turns on if the driver activates the emergency switch. No emergencies happened in that particular bus on that particular date, so there was no footage to see.

[[folder:VideoGames]]

* ''VideoGame/PAYDAYTheHeist'': The security cameras draw cops to the heisters that they watch as long as they are active, but are effectively useless at spotting heisters in stealth. ''VideoGame/{{PAYDAY 2}}'' subverts it: security cameras take time to spot heisters and break stealth, during which the targeted heister can just move out of the way or duck behind cover. The basic security cameras are easy to destroy, which will be picked up on by guards but also make great guard lures. However, the Titan Camera on Mayhem difficulty and above [[MadeOfIron are indestructible]].
* ''VideoGame/Hitman2016'': Destroying the security footage makes all cameras in the level inactive, meaning they no longer spot you and lower your score. The Latter is Completely averted when playing on Professional Mode however, which allows cameras to alert nearby guards if you trespass, often prompting the player to restart.

[[folder:WebComics]]
* Averted in ''BloodandSmoke''. During the first chapter Carson asks Hardigan to check footage from working security cameras.

[[folder:WesternAnimation]]

[[folder: RealLife]]
* Common in Real Life. Many retail stores use dummy cameras to discourage criminals, but these are usually in tandem with a few working ones. In fact, the reason why most in-store CCTV footage is crap and blurry grainy is that the store owners are cheapskates who are recycling the same batch of video cassettes over and over again until they're over-recorded so often they are literally worn out.
** The strategy is to put at least one fake camera (sometimes nothing more than a plastic shell) in plain sight where everybody and their grandma has no choice but to see it at least once while they're in the store. Then, with that as a distraction and/or deterrent, a number of cleverly hidden cameras watch you completely out of sight and mind. It's expensive, but annual losses from stolen merchandise and/or vandalism can potentially be cut by thousands.

** The UK also experimented with Automatic Numberplate Recognition cameras on city streets, but initial hopes of using them to crack down on uninsured drivers and other low-grade motoring offences were thwarted when the police discovered that nearly one car in ten was being flagged up. Even if the OCR technology or the Police National Computer's records were 100% reliable and accurate, and even the finest systems that money can buy throw up false positives every so often, actually reacting to the information received would have been like trying to bail out the sea. The ANPR cameras are now only used to look for vehicles that have been reported stolen or in connection to another offence.
* The poster image for InsecurityCamera

* The background to the TV drama ''Hot Money'' was a real-life case at a backwater, relatively low-security, outstation of the Bank of England where old time-served banknotes were stored prior to destruction. The cleaning staff discovered a security gap they could exploit - as even bank vaults need to be hoovered and duste, and who really watches lowly menials like cleaners? In the storage areas, one of the two cleaners innocently chose to give the security camera a quick dust and a polish of the camera lens. That's their job, right? While Cleaner A was polishing the lens of the camera with a cloth, and blocking its view of what else was going on whilst merely doing her job, cleaner B was stuffing thousands of pounds worth of five and ten pound notes into the black bin-bag attached to her trolley. (As the notes were recalls which were intended for destruction in an incinerator, no accurate count or check was made of them: this became pretty much the perfect crime in RealLife, and was only discovered because one of the perpetrators was busted for an entirely different offence).

* ''VideoGame/PAYDAYTheHeist'': The security cameras draw cops to the heisters that they watch as long as they are active, but are effectively useless at spotting heisters in stealth. ''VideoGame/{{PAYDAY 2}}'' subverts it: security cameras take time to spot heisters and break stealth, during which the targeted heister can just move out of the way. The basic security cameras are easy to destroy, which will be picked up on by guards but also make great guard lures. However, the Titan Camera on Death Wish is invulnerable to damage.

** DoubleSubverted in one ''LawAndOrder'' episode, in which a store camera is both active and shows the killer dragging his victims to where he kills them. The only reason it doesn't get used is because the killer had the video and the trick police used to stall him so he couldn't destroy the evidence before a search warrant arrived was more than the judge was willing to let slide.

* The background to the TV drama ''Hot Money'' was a real-life case at a backwater, relatively low-security, outstation of the Bank of England where old time-served banknotes were stored prior to destruction. The cleaning staff discovered a security gap they could exploit - as even bank vaults need to be hoovered and duste, and who really watches lowly menials like cleaners? In the storage areas, one of the two cleaners innocently chose to give the security camera a quick dust and a polish of the camera lens. That's their job, right?
While Cleaner A was polishing the lens of the camera with a cloth, and blocking its view of what else was going on whilst merely doing her job, cleaner B was stuffing thousands of pounds worth of five and ten pound notes into the black bin-bag attached to her trolley. (As the notes were recalls which were intended for destruction in an incinerator, no accurate count or check was made of them: this became pretty much the perfect crime in RealLife, and was only discovered because one of the perpetrators was busted for an entirely different offence).

* In one episode of ''Series/BreakingBad'', [[AmericanLawEnforcement DEA Agent]] Hank Schrader is trying to interrogate a gas station clerk to find out who sold her some meth. When he finally realizes she knows nothing, he looks up and asks if the security camera is regularly on. It isn't.

* ''VideoGame/{{PAYDAY}}'': The security cameras draw cops to the heisters that they watch as long as they are active, but are effectively useless at spotting heisters in stealth. ''VideoGame/{{PAYDAY 2}}'' subverts it: security cameras take time to spot heisters and break stealth, during which the targeted heister can just move out of the way. The basic security cameras are easy to destroy, which will be picked up on by guards but also make great guard lures. However, the Titan Camera on Death Wish is invulnerable to damage.

* Payday: The security cameras draw cops to the heisters that they watch as long as they are active, but are effectively useless at spotting heisters in stealth.
* Payday2: Subverted. Security cameras take time to spot heisters and break stealth, during which the heister can just move out of the way. The basic security cameras are easy to destroy, which will be picked up by guards but make great guard lures. However, the Titan Camera on Death Wish is invulnerable to damage.

* Also happens in ''LawAndOrder'' and its subseries.

* In an episode of ''ATouchOfFrost'', Frost asks Toolan if he managed to get the evidence from the camera for a murder that had happened in an alley, only to be told that it was facing the wrong way.

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* In ''RiversOfLondon'', the first murder is caught on CCTV, but a key event in the lead-up to it, vital to figuring out who did it and why, occurred just outside the camera's field of view.

* Subverted in ''PhineasAndFerb'': A traffic cam caught not only the boys' inventions, but Perry's comings and goings for the [=OWCA=].

* In ''ComicStrip/BusStop'', Jason tries to find someone that he knew rode on a specific bus on a specific date, so he gets in touch with the bus company to try to look at their security camera footage. Turns out the bus camera only turns on if the driver activates the emergency switch. No emergencies happened on that particular date, that particular bus, so there was no footage to see.

* In ''BusStop'', Jason tries to find someone that he knew rode on a specific bus on a specific date, so he gets in touch with the bus company to try to look at their security camera footage. Turns out the bus camera only turns on if the driver activates the emergency switch. No emergencies happened on that particular date, that particular bus, so there was no footage to see.