Private photography by individuals that can't realistically pool their recordings is something entirely different.
That's more or less the situation with CCTV cameras though. Its not like there's some national control room where people sit and watch every camera in the country 24/7. Most CCTV cameras are being recorded to a hard disk or video in the premises their located, and for authorities to access it they'd have to turn up in person and ask to see the videos (assuming the storage hasn't been reused yet).
> what people don't realise is that in fact a very significant proportion of the private CCTV cameras in the UK have their management outsourced to a few large private sector companies.
Neither of you have offered evidence to back up the statements, and both are plausible. Does anyone have evidence pointing to which statement is more representative of reality?
Thought experiment: what if we could?
E.g. here's a form for Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council [1] but anyone holding personally identifiable information in the UK are required to handle subject access requests (and there are similar mechanism required in all EU countries to comply with the relevant EU directive)
[1] http://www.stockport.gov.uk/2013/2976/66897/subjectaccessreq...
Or where someone else went...