History Main / InsecurityCamera

* In ''VideoGame/{{BioShock|1}}'', cameras are not only breakable, but spectacularly easy to dodge; when your character enters their view, they spend 3-4 seconds beeping before any kind of alarm is set off. Their movement is also ridiculously noisy. When they change their viewing direction, they make a noise that suggests they aren't so much moving as much as grinding stones. Sure, the game is set in 1960, but still...
** Not only that, but they also emit bright, red light in area they are watching, which magically turns green, once hacked. Thank goodness for colour-coding engineers.
** Quick players can shamelessly exploit this. As the game is mostly played in small, enclosed spaces, you are rarely far away from the cameras. So if you turn a corner and find yourself looking squarely at a beeping camera, you can just run to it, jump, and enter the hacking interface (which stops time passing) before it sounds the alarm. Then you hack it, and the problem is solved.
** Possible justified in that Rapture is in an extreme state of disrepair with water everywhere. Presumably, what remains of the inhabitants are more worried about each other than about keeping them in top condition.
** The cameras appear to be mostly automated as far as calling for guards, also destroying the cameras doesn't seem to stop Atlas or Andrew Ryan from knowing where you are at any given time.

* Inverted in ''VideoGame/{{The Punisher|THQ}}'' for the UsefulNotes/{{Xbox}}. The Punisher leaves Spacker Dave at the security desk for Stark Industries, being that the nearby employees had been slaughtered by Yakuza. Dave kinda sorta helps the Punisher out with advice.

* In ''Film/PanicRoom'', as the thieves enter the titular room and leave Jodie Foster out, she grabs [[DropTheHammer a hammer]] and starts smashing the cameras, so her further acts can't be seen. One of the thieves stops to wonder why they didn't do that while breaking in.

** Lampshaded in ''Film/TomorrowNeverDies''. There's a scene where Bond and his current partner, Wai Lin, are breaking into Elliot Carver's stealth ship. Carver is discussing something with one of his subordinates when he then notices Lin on the security monitors in the corner. The person manning them is busy writing notes on his clipboard. Carver strides over to him and yells, "What the ''Hell'' do I pay you for?"

** Lampshaded in ''Film/TomorrowNeverDies''. There's a scene where Bond and his current partner, Wai Lin, are breaking into Elliot Carver's stealth ship. Carver is discussing something with one of his subordinates when he then notices Lin on the security cameras in the corner, the person manning which is just sleeping. Carver walks over to him and yells "what the hell am I paying you for?"

!!Examples

[[folder:Film]]

---> '''Camera operator''': I can't find them, sir.
---> '''Chief''': There are over two thousand cameras in this building, find them!
---> '''Kruz''': Listen, I don't mean to intrude, but these people are very, very smart, and if they disappear, it's because they mean to.

---> '''Chief''': (with a chuckle) Temper temper, Mr Macdougall. (In radio) Confirm suspects on floor fifty, heading south away from the gas.
---> Cut to...
---> '''Mac''': They'll think we'll try to avoid the gas, so try to keep your eyes closed, and take a deep breath.
* ''Film/JamesBond''

* ''Film/TheThomasCrownAffair1999'': There's a sequence near the beginning where a team of art thieves are performing an elaborate operation and one of them ends up dangling in full view of a security camera. This is seen in the main security room, but the person manning the cameras is catatonic and doesn't actually do anything in response.
* In ''Film/The6thDay'', one of the two Arnold Schwarzeneggers walks around a building shooting out all the security cameras, which makes him look pretty stupid when the bad guys instantly see what he's up to and capture him. However, it turns out he was just a diversion so the other Arnold could sneak in unnoticed.
* In ''Film/TenaciousDInThePickOfDestiny'' when Jack Black is 'sneaking' into the Rock and Roll History Museum, JB thinks he's being extremely stealthy about the whole thing, but a shot of the guard room reveals he's pretty much been on camera the whole time. The guards, however, are too busy getting stoned and telling stories to notice.

* ''Film/TheBourneUltimatum'' had Jason directing a target by cell phone through a train station keeping both of them hidden from the multiple security cameras (and government agents) watching them. It was implied to be part of his HyperAwareness that he was able to identify the blind spots of at least 10 cameras. It wasn't until his target panicked and broke out of the blind spot Jason set him on that the agents were able to track him.
* [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in ''Film/FastTimesAtRidgemontHigh'', in which a burglar "disables" the security system at the convenience store Spicoli's working at by spraying paint over the lens. It being [[TheEighties 1982]], that probably ''was'' [[TechMarchesOn the only camera in the store]].

* Played so straight it has to be a parody, in ''Film/HotFuzz'' a crew of kids spraypaint over the whole village's CCTV system while the character watching the monitors just happened to be reading the paper. Oddly enough it's completely irrelevant if he sees them do it or not; the intention is just to blind him during the final battle, not to sneak in.
* Film/{{Chappie}}: It is even shown that the company ''has security cameras'', but no one seems to be interested in checking up on them, because to do so would negate a lot of plot.
* ''Film/XMenDaysOfFuturePast''. While infiltrating the Pentagon, Beast gets the OminousMultipleScreens of the guardroom to start playing a TV show instead, as if there's been some kind of transmission glitch.
* Justified in ''Film/DenOfThieves''. The guards immediately notice when the cameras goes on the fritz, but cannot send anyone one to check it because the counting rooms are in LockDown due to the brownout. The keep an eye on the fuzzed screen and do their best to fix it from the monitor room, and send someone to investigate as soon as the lock down ends.
* ''Film/InsideMan'': The robbery crew are shown using special infrared equipment to disable the bank's security cameras beforehand.

* ''Literature/ArtemisFowl'' loves this trope; it does it once every other book. A notable example is in ''The Eternity Code'': Artemis and co. have to get past a phalanx of security cameras to break into the Spiro Needle... and they do it easily, complete with TechnoBabble about why they can't be seen on the video. Granted, they have [[{{Magitek}} fairy technology]], but you'd think a corporation with such a huge security budget could afford to put their cameras in the ''walls'', rather than mounting them in such a way that they could be turned to face away from the intruders.

* No matter what the games do, the Franchise/StarWars novels tend to avert this pretty cleanly (except when [[AWizardDidIt Jedi]] are involved, of course). ''[[Literature/XWingSeries Wraith Squadron]]'', in particular, goes to major effort at times to disable them without alerting anyone (typically by intercepting the data-stream it should be sending and splicing in a loop of "normal" footage). Occasionally goes even farther--a web of security cams in ''Solo Command'' has a prominent gap in it, so the Wraiths (rightfully) figure it's a trap, with hidden cameras covering the whole thing. And a villain in ''The Bacta War'' tries to get away by blowing out cameras along his path... so the guy in the security center just tracks him by what cameras stopped transmitting recently. The same thing happens to the heroes in ''Literature/ShadowsOfTheEmpire''--traveling up a skyscraper, Lando shoots out the transmission wires for an entire floor's worth of cameras at a time, so the villain simply goes to intercept them on a floor that still has working cameras.
** As for Jedi, they can 'glitch' cameras whenever the cameras show them (Or sometimes only when there's enough of them to be recognizable, so in crowds the camera works until it happens to see their face), so as to foil AI-based recognition. As of the latest series of books, various people have figured out they can track Jedi by programming AIs to look for this glitching moving from camera to camera, although they obviously have to guess as to who is being tracked.
** In Literature/SurvivorsQuest, the people from the ''Chaf Envoy'' get trapped in three different turbolifts by the Literature/OutboundFlight survivor titled the Guardian. The Guardian tells them not to cut or blast their way out, because [[ElevatorFailure the turbolifts will crush them]]. The turbolift with Luke and Mara in it immediately has all potential camera sites covered up by them; the four [[BadassCrew unspeakably badass stormtroopers]] in another turbolift figure out where the camera is and cover it and only it. But the Guardian is in too much of a bind to do anything about it; plus, he doesn't think they'll be able to escape. Instead he lets someone in the third turbolift talk him into letting them out to talk to them, and leaves the Jedi and the stormtroopers where they are.
* In one of the ''[[Literature/TheExecutioner Phoenix Force]]'' series (a Mack Bolan 'Executioner' spin-off) the heroes are checking the security at a nuclear power plant. A guard mentions that one of the security cameras is out, but he's called for Maintenance. The leader of Phoenix Force asks if he's sent a guard to secure the area while the camera is down. The plant manager says he's being a bit paranoid, opens the next door and gets shot in the face by a terrorist.

* The security cameras at the [[spoiler:biological weapons]] facility from the prologue of ''[[Literature/PaladinOfShadows Unto the Breech]]'' were positioned, thanks to what the narration calls "typical Russian inefficiency", so as to leave a dead spot in their coverage, which is exploited by intruders. Several cameras being shot out by the intruders gets only a casual look by the monitoring staff, with ultimately fatal results for the staff.
* Averted in ''Literature/DocSidhe'' In the final battle, both sides use and abuse security cameras ("talk-boxes") - both their own and the other side's - but none of the glitches are ever treated as being due to anything other than deliberate intent. (Including one case [[spoiler:where one of the characters remotely destroys one of her own security cameras in order to warn her friends at the camera's location.]])
* The heroes in ''Literature/{{Relativity}}'' use a technobabble device to disable the security cameras in a police station parking lot. They assume (correctly) that if the cameras are down for only 90 seconds, and then come back on, no one will bother to check them out. (Yes, it was the good guys doing it. They were trying to track down a fake police car.)

* The ''Series/TrailerParkBoys'' occasionally have to deal with these problems, such as when they rob grocery or convenience stores. In one robbery in the first season, one of the Boys tries to get rid of the camera by shooting it with his gun, although by that time he's already on film with no mask on. Presumably learning from their mistakes, in later seasons the Boys make sure to take the security tapes along with everything else they steal. Also averted in one episode, when one of the Boys openly lets himself get caught on camera, since he '''wants''' to go to jail.
* In ''Series/{{Burn Notice}}'', the security cameras are taken out with a laser-pointer overloading the chip. The entire purpose of this, however, is to make the guy ''think'' there's a security breach, when there really isn't one.

* ''Series/{{Spooks}}''. During a celebrity child kidnapping that occurs during a party, a co-conspirator (who's an escort girl) [[WeNeedADistraction distracts the security guard]] monitoring the cameras by having sex with him. Unfortunately for both of them there's another camera in the room to show if the guard is bunking off.
* In ''Series/{{Angel}}'', Lindsey gets magical tattoos in the fifth season that allow him to walk unseen past security cameras. He even waves.

* Creator/{{BBC}}'s drama ''Hot Money'' was based on a real-life case where women working at a Bank of England depot which destroyed time-served bank-notes chose to reprieve old notes from the furnace and give them a new lease of life. Getting on for two or three million pounds in very old notes were diverted into caches and secret bank accounts before the Bank of England caught on. As cleaners were involved in the scam, they elected to clean the cameras and their lenses at just the right moment - thus blocking the shot whilst others behind them stole arm-loads of notes. All the camera saw at that moment would be a cleaner legitimately polishing the lens with a cloth.
* Subverted on ''Series/AmericanGods'' when we see a flashback to how Shadow and Laura first met. She is working as a dealer in a casino and realizes that Shadow is trying to cheat. She warns him that the casino has upgraded its security and while he might think that he is seating in a security camera blindspot, he is actually watched by multiple hidden cameras. Presumably the "blindspot" was setup as SchmuckBait to easier catch cheaters.

* ''Series/Daredevil2015'': In the first episode of season 1, Wilson Fisk tries to have Karen Page killed in her jail cell to keep her from talking. When petitioning for Karen's release after the attempt fails, Matt and Foggy threaten a civil suit against the precinct, with Foggy even pointing out how conveniently the surveillance cameras in Karen's detention area went haywire right before the assault.
* ''Series/FargoSeasonThree''': Golem, a henchman on VM Varga's payroll, disguises himself as a guard and tries to kill Ray Stussy's girlfriend Nikki in jail with a lethal injection of drugs (to make it look like an overdose), but Gloria intervenes, and he manages to escape while she's trying to handcuff him. When trying to play back surveillance footage from the camera in the holding cells, the camera glitches out at the time of the attack. Sheriff Dammik is inclined to see it as a glitch whereas Gloria correctly sees it as someone hacking the camera to make sure the attack on Nikki wasn't recorded.
* On ''Series/MagnumPI'' in "Ghost Writer", Magnum and company are captured and placed in a room that has a single rotating security camera in the center of the ceiling. They simply walk behind the camera, causing the guard [[TheGuardsMustBeCrazy to think that they've disappeared]] and come into the room to look for them.

* In ''VideoGame/DeusEx'', the player can use nano tools to shut down cameras without anyone noticing or any alarms being sounded. They can also hack into the system and turn off the cameras and nobody will turn them back on. Even when a camera does see the player, it lets out a few seconds of klaxon noise before it triggers the proper alarm, giving the player a chance to flee.
** However considering that the systems are automated, there is no one to notice them being turned off, and a delay could conceivably be there to avoid false alarms.
*** The cameras do transmit a picture, if the player hacks into the system, but allowing manual viewing on top of automation isn't inconceivable.
*** They probably function in a similar manner to the Identify-Friend-or-Foe feature of JC's nanoaugmentation, which means that they'd check to see if something looks sufficiently "foe-like" before setting off the alarm. The visual feed of the security stations is only visible if someone is actively checking them out and no enemies do so. The efficiency of fully automated technology ends up backfiring, eh?
** In ''VideoGame/DeusExInvisibleWar'', the cameras get dumber as they now emit a cone of colored light that indicates their field of vision. Possibly justified as the PC has various kinds of implants that alter his vision -- the player's HUD and other screens are supposedly visible to the character as well. They are also more vulnerable to EMP and transmit in greyscale rather than full color, as opposed to the earlier models in the first game. Ain't technology grand?
** In ''VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution'' the cone to show their field of vision is there but explicitly described as being from a part of Adam's augmentation. Destroying a camera will set off the alarm, although you can ''temporarily'' disable one for a few seconds with the stun gun without setting off the alarm. That still doesn't excuse the fact that most cameras oscillate rather than staying put. Cameras will also tolerate a second or two of "suspicious" behavior before actually raising the alarm, which makes sense for an automated system to get a good confirmation rather than throwing false positives all day.
** ''VideoGame/DeusExMankindDivided'' follows a similar pattern as ''Human Revolution''. Stun guns are no longer able to disable cameras, however several guns gain EMP ammo which functions similarly. Adam also gains a pair of new augmentations that can also serve this purpose. Additionally, once disabled, cameras can be destroyed without triggering an alarm, though enemies who spot a destroyed camera will become suspicious.
* In ''VideoGame/SplinterCell'', the cameras notice you almost instantly if they spot you, and a guard yells over the radio and sounds the alarm. However, the guard doesn't seem to notice if every single camera gets shot or disabled. Or, for the bullet proof ones, if the room suddenly goes dark or the feed is temporarily jammed. Later games in the series become more stringent: shooting cameras raises the alert level for guards, and new tools to temporarily disable cameras become available.
* In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' and ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty'', the player can shoot out cameras or baffle them with chaff grenades. Either way, nobody notices or bothers to investigate.
** In ''Twin Snakes'', the guards will be alerted if you shoot a camera, even with the silencer.
* ''VideoGame/SystemShock 2'' allows the player to hack into security camera systems, but only for a specific period of time. Consequently, a camera will flash yellow when it spots you, before flashing an alert red mode. One or two shots from most weapons are also enough to kill a security camera, whereupon what happens is... exactly nothing. Obviously the super-advanced AI controlling the ship doesn't care about losing cameras all over the place...
** This is a justified trope, as the ''last'' time an AI cared about losing cameras all over the place in the game universe, it resulted in SHODAN. Newer AIs since that little "incident" were specifically programmed with weaknesses in case something like that ever happened again.
* In ''VideoGame/NoOneLivesForever'', guards actually ''will'' come check or sound the alarm if you just shoot out cameras... but it still has most of the other features.
* In the videogame version of ''Film/BatmanBegins'', there are ''no'' security cameras in Falconi's ElaborateUndergroundBase-cum-BadGuyBar until you get to the monitor room, and deal with the Mook watching them. The ''only'' purpose of the cameras is that if you hack into them you can see the infra-red beams of the {{Laser Hallway}}s.
* ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' subverts this by having the AI scold you every time you break a camera, and even has an achievement for breaking every breakable camera in the game. Unfortunately, doing this means you have to break them all in one full run without stopping. And sometimes the achievement doesn't appear after you get it.

* ''VideoGame/{{Penumbra}}'' has you sneak around two rooms filled with green-glowing cameras while finding switches to unlock the exit. If you step into the camera's line of sight (it takes a second to happen), the room's puzzle resets and the camera seeing you briefly turns red.
** ''Requiem'' does it even more harshly by releasing poisonous gas if you're seen even once on just one camera. However, you can break its powerbox with a rock (and even pick up the camera, since it falls when broken)
* ''Franchise/JamesBond''

* Inverted in ''VideoGame/EvilGenius'' : one of the game's challenge is to build a network of cameras and trap sensors (that, individually, fit this trope to a T) that the James Bond types will not shoot on sight. Your own minions rely on them to know where the investigators are, so having a top notch insecurity system is key.
* In the video game version of the ''James Bond'' film ''Videogame/TheWorldIsNotEnough'' the first level features security cameras that must be shot out to continue. They are, of course, of the slow-moving and slow-detecting variety--one can stand in their range for a few seconds and all they do is beep; eventually the alarms will go off (the good guys downstairs do not react to the dozens of bad guys upstairs being slaughtered, despite several civilians being left alive).
** Strangely averted in the video game version of ''Videogame/TomorrowNeverDies'' when in a henchman's office building lair. On one floor there are many security cameras, but none can be shot out. However, they also do not react to stepping in front of them, or even killing gaurds right in front of them!

* ''VideoGame/DeadRising'' averts this; the Security Room (which serves as a safe haven amidst the ZombieApocalypse) has several monitors that are hooked up to the malls numerous security cameras. The camera feed not only helps the plot along at certain times, but they're also watched by Otis (a security guard) who contacts Frank to inform him of any survivors he's spotted hiding in the mall. However, the cameras are still not all-seeing, since there are several survivors and some boss fights that are not brought to your attention; you must find them yourself.
* Justified in ''VideoGame/ThiefIITheMetalAge''. While the "cameras" are ''very'' noticeable in this way (being human faces with attached glowing crystals whose color signals their degree of confidence an intruder's present that hiss and click constantly as they move), the very concept of a security camera is a recent novelty and their makers see them as religious crafts as much as salable products. Their conspicuousness is quite likely a selling point. And they connect to other alarms and mechanisms rather than having human guards monitor them because their inventor is a religious crackpot who thinks his toys are more perfect than any living defense.
** Arguably even a partial aversion, in that many have no off switch and, being large steampunky metal constructions, the only real way to get rid of them is to blow them up, which tends to attract a lot of unwanted attention.
* If 47 is spotted by a camera in ''VideoGame/HitmanBloodMoney'', he gets a new task to go and get the security tapes to keep himself from being identifiable. Similarly, in ''VideoGame/Hitman2016'', being recorded by cameras lowers your rating, so you have to destroy the security footage if you want a silent assassin rating. You can also shoot out cameras along a given path to make a specific camera inactive, though doing this on Professional Mode causes a guard to investigate the camera destruction.

* The ''VideoGame/AlphaProtocol'' security cameras all cast a handy blue cone of light so you know where they are looking. An alarm will sound if you try shooting them, however.

* During the CIA escape in ''VideoGame/MissionImpossible1997'', you can disable cameras with spray paint.
* ''VideoGame/TimeSplitters''

* Averted in ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity''. TYGER will note when one of their security cameras is destroyed, and given [[WretchedHive where they're located]], they're somewhat justified in not sending out a repair team.
* In ''VideoGame/ChampionsOnline'', the ''Resistance'' adventure: "Rehabilitation Center" episode.
-->'''Metallic voice:''' "Security bot disabled" (pause) "Security bot reinitializing" (pause) "Unauthorized persons detected!"\\
"1 ...", "2 ...", "3 ..."\\
And then, for those who didn't quite grasp the idea the (quite killable and quite rebootable) bot was trying to get across:\\
'''Metallic voice:''' "Alarm raised"
* Kasumi's loyalty mission in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' involves pulling a heist. Naturally, there are security cameras. However, she manages to wave her omnitool and mess with the feed. Of course, the guy she's stealing from had anticipated that she'd sneak in and sends his security forces in through the only door out.
* If a level in ''VideoGame/StealthBastard'' has a security camera, and it's meant to be solvable, this trope is in effect. (Occasionally, though, you're meant to trigger the camera in order to get something else to appear...)
* Zig zagged in ''VideoGame/PAYDAYTheHeist''. Most levels that have security cameras in them do nothing at all except aid the police in finding your location faster. During the heist in No Mercy, pulling out your guns will cause the alarm to be triggered in 7 seconds and if you are successful in destroying the cameras before that, then there is a chance that the hospital will send a repairman to inspect the cameras or send a security guard to see what is going on.
** Averted in the sequel, where cameras will sound the alarm if you stay in its view for too long. The range and speed with which you are detected depends on your equipment, as with regular guards; a guy in a suit is much less suspicious than an armored clown carrying a light machinegun. Cameras will also raise the alarm if they see something odd, such as an alerted guard, panicking civilian, or a dead body. Shooting cameras is a legitimate strategy, but prompts the camera operator to send a guard to check it out. The guard will raise the alarm if he sees a broken camera, but you can also use this tactic to lure guards away so that you can dispose of them quietly. This is impossible on higher difficulties, as the cameras there are completely invulnerable. The ability for CameraSpoofing is necessary to blind these temporarily (it also works on the destructible cameras on lower difficulties). On most heists, you also have the option of taking out the camera operator (usually a guard, except on certain maps), which instantly disables all cameras. Finally, a basic ECM jammer briefly disables all cameras on the map.
* In ''VideoGame/SpyFox 2: Some Assembly Required'', Fox needs to steal something from one of the wax figures at a wax museum. In order to do so without being seen by the security camera, he must place a static image of the shot from the camera's angle in front of the camera so the security guard will not see that something has changed about the scene.
* As of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil2'', we have the Licker. It is apparently smart enough to know the concept behind security cameras, and takes them out in its hunting ground.
* {{Defied|Trope}} in ''Franchise/DanganRonpa'', where tampering with security cameras is punishable by death.
* The 3rd palace in ''VideoGame/Persona5'' has security cameras that will immediately notify the shadows of your presence, all of which can be easily walked around or have a continent power box nearby that turns the cameras off when broken.
* In ''VideoGame/TheFeebleFiles'', Feeble is perfectly able to render a prison camera useless by lobbing some goop onto the lens. [[FailedASpotCheck While standing right in front of the camera.]]

* In ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'', apparently all Abraham needs to do in order to cover his departure from a museum at night is to [[http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=925 destroy]] a few cameras magically. No alarm is raised and he is able to [[http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=926 nonchalantly walk right out]] with nothing and nobody to stop him.

* Subverted in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/StrokerAndHoop'' when Stroker breaks into a pharmaceutical company by the classic method of knocking out a guard and stealing his uniform. Once inside, he is immediately apprehended by another guard who saw the whole thing on security camera. When Stroker gets indignant that the guard wasn't sleeping or watching a football game like he was supposed to be, the guard explains "I like my job".

---> "I'm [[WesternAnimation/{{Pinocchio}} Jiminy Cricket]] to the entire town!"

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/SheRaPrincessOfPower,'' having observed [[BrickJoke earlier in the episode]] that "the Horde puts bombs in ''everything,"'' Bow creates a distraction while sneaking into the Fright Zone by shooting an arrow at a security camera, which promptly explodes, attracting the guards away from the heroes.

Breaking into a secret installation ought to be the hardest thing in the world--even if you can [[TheGuardsMustBeCrazy bamboozle the guards]] and outfox the AngryGuardDog there's still the thorny problem of the security cameras. Or there ''ought'' to be the thorny problem of the security cameras, but it seems that every high-security base, whether it's run by terrorists, the Government or a DiabolicalMastermind, buys its security cameras from the same crummy factory.

* In ''VideoGame/SensoryOverload'', security cameras are hemispherical and either shoot at you or sound an alarm to summon enemies from nearby rooms. Either way, they can be stealthily shot out with the HollywoodSilencer equipped.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity''. As anytime you take out a security camera, you can hear over the guard frequency that they noticed a camera go out. Not that they do anything about it though.
** Considering that the cameras are in areas filled with violent, often armed, prisoners and Batman, they may not want to risk losing guards by sending out a group to repair the cameras.

* In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' and ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2'', the player can shoot out cameras or baffle them with chaff grenades. Either way, nobody notices or bothers to investigate.

* Inverted in ''VideoGame/{{The Punisher|THQ}}'' for the UsefulNotes/{{Xbox}}. The Punisher leaves Spacker Dave at the security desk for Stark Industries () being that the nearby employees had been slaughtered by Yakuza. Dave kinda sorta helps the Punisher out with advice.

** Arguably even a partial aversion, in that many have no off switch and, being large steampunky metal constructions, the only real way to get rid of them is to blow them up, which tends to attract alot of unwanted attention.
* If 47 is spotted by a camera in ''VideoGame/HitmanBloodMoney'', he gets a new task to go and get the security tapes to keep himself from being identifiable. Similarly, in ''VideoGame/Hitman2016'', being recorded by cameras lowers your rating, so you have to destroy the security footage if you want a silent assassin rating. You can also shootout cameras along a given path to make a specfric camera inactive, though doing this on Professional Mode causes a guard to investigate the camera destruction.

** In the console version, their range of vision is indicated by a red beam, and they turn quickly in a predictable manner. They're easily avoided, and in one level, can be easily neutralized by sabotaging the electric breaker found early in the stage. You can't shoot them, but you don't really need to in the first place.
** In the PC version, they turn slowly, and you can avoid their gaze by standing directly under them. They usually show a green light if everything's OK, but you can stand in front of them for nearly 5 seconds after the green light turns to yellow before it turns red and the alarms are sounded. You can't shoot them, either. Doing so results in the alarm instantly being sounded.

** The cameras in ''VideoGame/PerfectDarkZero'' use the "cone of light" method of detection, and can be taken out with a single shot to the lens.

* In the video game version of the ''James Bond'' film ''Videogame/TheWorldIsNotEnough'' the first level features security cameras that must be shot out to continue. They are, of course, of the slow-moving and slow-detecting variety--one can stand in their range for a few seconds and all they do is beep; eventually the alarms will go off (the good guys downstairs do not react to the dozens of bad guys upstairs being slaughtered, despite several civillains being left alive...)

* Inverted in ''VideoGame/ThePunisher'' for the UsefulNotes/{{Xbox}}. The Punisher leaves Spacker Dave at the security desk for Stark Industries () being that the nearby employees had been slaughtered by Yakuza. Dave kinda sorta helps the Punisher out with advice.

** In ''VideoGame/{{Nightfire}}'', the cameras are large and turn slowly. They usually show a green light if everything's OK, but you can stand in front of them for nearly 5 seconds after the green light turns to yellow before it turns red and the alarms are sounded.
*** You can't shoot them, either. Doing so results in the alarm instantly being sounded.

** In ''VideoGame/TimeSplittersFuturePerfect'', the majority of the level [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Breaking and Entering]] has security cameras everywhere. If Cortez is spotted, guards will be called and autoguns will be switched on. If you shoot the cameras, you'll hear a transmission from the guards ordering a patrol to check the stairways, [[ArtificialBrilliance which is the only way]] for Cortez to get from floor to floor. However, you do get a weapon that allows Cortez to disable all electricity-based tech, ''at the very beginning of the level.''
*** Oh, and watch out for the laser tripwires, thumbprint scanners, random engineers, and security robots. If you can't kill a guard or engineer quickly after you're spotted, [[OhCrap security is summoned.]] [[FromBadToWorse And they're armed with semiautomatics.]]
** Similarly, in ''VideoGame/TimeSplitters2'', [[ThatOneLevel NeoTokyo]] is rife with security cameras. You have to shoot them down without drawing attention to yourself. If you decide to [[VideogameCrueltyPotential shoot any civilians]], then Riot Police are called out to deal with you, and [[VideogameCrueltyPunishment you are informed that you failed the level.]]

** Averted in the sequel, where cameras will sound the alarm if you stay in its view for too long. The range and speed with which you are detected depends on your equipment, as with regular guards; a guy in a suit is much less suspicious than an armored clown carrying a light machinegun. Cameras will also raise the alarm if they see something odd, such as an alerted guard, panicking civilian, or a dead body. Shooting cameras is a legitimate strategy, but prompts the camera operator to send a guard to check it out. The guard will raise the alarm if he sees a broken camera, but you can also use this tactic to lure guards away so that you can dispose of them quietly. On most heists, you also have the option of taking out the camera operator (usually a guard, except on certain maps), which instantly disables all cameras. Finally, a basic ECM jammer briefly disables all cameras on the map.

* No matter what the games do, the StarWars novels tend to avert this pretty cleanly (except when [[AWizardDidIt Jedi]] are involved, of course). ''[[Literature/XWingSeries Wraith Squadron]]'', in particular, goes to major effort at times to disable them without alerting anyone (typically by intercepting the data-stream it should be sending and splicing in a loop of "normal" footage). Occasionally goes even farther--a web of security cams in ''Solo Command'' has a prominent gap in it, so the Wraiths (rightfully) figure it's a trap, with hidden cameras covering the whole thing. And a villain in ''The Bacta War'' tries to get away by blowing out cameras along his path... so the guy in the security center just tracks him by what cameras stopped transmitting recently. The same thing happens to the heroes in ''Literature/ShadowsOfTheEmpire''--traveling up a skyscraper, Lando shoots out the transmission wires for an entire floor's worth of cameras at a time, so the villain simply goes to intercept them on a floor that still has working cameras.

** ''VideoGame/DeusExMankindDivided'' follows a similar pattern as ''Human Revolution''. Stun guns are no longer able to disable cameras, however several guns gain EMP ammo which take over this role. Adam also gains a pair of new augmentations that can also serve this purpose. Additionally, once disabled, cameras can be destroyed without triggering an alarm, though enemies who spot a destroyed camera will become suspicious.

* In ''Border Songs'', the border patrol installs surveillance cameras aimed at the Rousseau residence. Wayne later shoots them down while wearing a George W. Bush mask.