At this time of year, many of us are away from home and office. We may be on a beach. We might be up a mountain. We could be cruising the seven seas. Or standing, hoping, throwing coins in to a fountain.

We have made our escape. We have got away from it all. We are, finally and thank goodness, on holiday.

Yet even as we relax, we occasionally wonder what is happening in our absence.

Is all well at work? Is the company still in business? Were all the lights turned off? Did we shut all the windows? Did next door’s party pass off peacefully? Could it still be raining?

Sensibly, most of us won’t allow such thoughts to disturb us for very long. We are here to leave all that behind. And, besides, if anything really important happens, someone is bound to send a text and tell us.

But there are a few sad souls who can never escape, insisting on always being able to see exactly what’s happening for themselves.

And the odds are, they will be amongst those who have installed one or more of the 4.5 million CCTV cameras that currently keep watch over the United Kingdom. A million of those cameras are located in the London area alone.

Now they will no doubt be delighted to learn, thanks to Iveda Solutions and mobiDEOS, they can watch whatever those cameras are capturing, as it happens, on their mobile phone.

In other words even at this moment your boss could be lounging poolside, cocktail and cigar in hand, observing you carefully. Should your efforts displease your phone could ring and you would be called unceremoniously to account.

It is not a comforting thought.

Amongst the people Iveda suggests can benefit from mobile camera access are security guards, small business owners, homeowners, parents, school administrators and government representatives.

In particular, Iveda suggests, the application is “ideal for business surveillance use.”

Surveillance, it should be noted, is a word the Encarta World English Dictionary defines as “continual observation of a person or group, especially one suspected of doing something illegal”.

It is bad enough to realise the authorities can watch you minding your own business in so many public places. But it is both depressing and profoundly disconcerting to realise your employer might also have you under surveillance.

As Kurt Freidhoff, President of Hoff Enterprises, Inc., is quoted as saying on the mobiDEOS website: “When I am travelling, or just away from my office, MobileCamViewer allows me to monitor my production crews, CNC equipment, warehouse and loading docks so I know what is in production, what is staging to ship and what is loading onto trucks to ship. MobileCamViewer also allows me to monitor my facilities after-hours or when production is on overtime.”

Despite Friedhoff making no mention of crime prevention, nobody should for one moment assume he is spying on his employees or that he does not trust them to do their jobs in his absence. But inevitably there will be some bosses choosing to exploit the technology for just that purpose.

The uncontrolled spread of CCTV cameras is a concern, and so are the purposes for which they are deployed. As Liberty, the human rights organisation say, the use of CCTV “is dangerously unregulated.” And, they continue, “Without independent regulation there is potential for CCTV to be misused and abused and potential for unjustified intrusions into our privacy.”

To make matters worse it is not as if those cameras have proven particularly adept in helping to solve crimes. In 2008, according to Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville, just one crime was solved for every thousand CCTV cameras in the London area.

Logically, by putting CCTV on to mobiles it can only make it easier for more people to watch over more of us for more of the time. And if it is not going to help prevent or solve crime, you have to wonder to what Orwellian purpose.