In the headlines this week, several pages away from the usual geopolitical disasters, is the news that Booths, the upmarket, up-north supermarket chain has decided to ditch its self-service checkouts in favour of tills staffed by humans. And it’s triggered my own misgivings about self-serve tills.

Although they do have their uses, and lots of people prefer them, there are many things they fail miserably at.

For a start, they’re machines! Cold, impersonal and lacking that little glimmer of human interaction… if that’s the kind of thing you’re into. They’re also ill-equipped for the big shop, despite supermarkets increasingly nudging our overflowing trolleys towards the crowded self-service area.

And weirdly, 37 years after they were first launched, using them is still a rubbish experience, despite recent upgrades. You swipe an item. Swipe again. Uncrinkle the barcode. Swipe some more. Or you have to wait for assistance for the most obscure products. And where is that bleedin’ bagging area?! Not where you thought it was, that’s for sure. Which begs the question, why isn’t there just a big label saying ‘BAGGING AREA’ on every machine?

Then there’s the UX… how many times do I need to tap the screen just to get to pay with my card? And why do I have to tell it more than once that I don’t want a bag?

We experience this litany of shitness with alarming regularity, wiping out whatever gains a quick checkout offers.

Yet I’ve put up with all of this for years, even finding myself morphing into what one might call a (reluctant) super user. But in the last year or so that’s changed. I’ve become more reticent to use them, and will happily wait for the human-powered till to become free rather than use the rows of empty self-checkouts. What’s tipped me over the edge, in particular, is the latest form of CCTV now prevalent in many of our beloved supermarket chains. It’s in your face, metaphorically and literally, planting itself firmly on the newest self-service kiosks.

So far, so what, you might think. CCTV has been around for years, and we’re so used to it we don’t even notice. London, for example, where I live, is one of the most surveilled cities in the world.

What’s changed is the sheer brazenness of it all. Gone are polite notices or subtle signage. Gone is the unassuming camera sitting in the corner of the ceiling, relaying fuzzy, top-of-your-head images to a third-rate LCD screen tucked behind the Chupa Chups and chewing gum.

Now, as you struggle to beep that packet of pasta across the sensor, a large screen positioned disconcertingly close to you head broadcasts your beautiful visage – wrinkles, wayward nose hairs and all – to the waiting queue behind you. This is pin-sharp, close-up, 30-frames-per-second video in all its million-colour glory.

You might say “well that’s technological progress for you”, but it feels more like a regression. Nearly 40 years after it was set, and 75 years after it was conceived, Nineteen Eighty-Four’s telescreens have made a triumphant return.

Apart from being incredibly off-putting and a shameless invasion of privacy, it feels at best like you’re the naughty kid in the playground and at worst like you’re guilty until proven innocent. It says I’m watching you and I’m recording you. I have (HD) evidence and I’m willing to put it on display, so don’t do anything dodgy or there’ll be trouble.

The Thought Police are making sure you definitely don’t even think about scarpering with that half a baguette and tub of cream cheese.

When you’ve got no plans to nick anything – which I like to assume is the vast majority of us – it’s unnerving and insulting. Sadly, when it comes to security, major supermarkets seem to care less than they used to about offending their customers, or how they’re perceived by their paying public. So it’s worth asking why. And why has this latest form of CCTV proliferated?

The supermarkets will say they have no choice: shoplifting rates have massively increased (though this is debatable). If it is true, there is evidence to suggest it’s because people don’t feel as bad stealing from a machine. Maybe it’s easier too.

The irony, then, is that self-checkouts have become the cause of the very thing this new CCTV is employed to stop. Cut the self service and it might stem the shoplifting. Then we won’t need Big Brother watching our every move.

Customers seem to be in agreement. In my local supermarket and elsewhere I’ve noticed more and more people queuing for the human – just like I’ve done for a while now. I don’t know if they’re doing it for the reasons I am, but either way, the tide may be turning.

Will Booths’ decision spark a revolution, a collective dismantling of the self-service till, and with it the supermarket telescreen network? I’m not so sure. Will it slow it down, giving supermarket bosses pause for thought? Perhaps.

If it reduces the number of self-checkout machines that plonk a massive great CCTV camera in front of your face, or reduces the overall ratio of self-serve kiosks to manned tills, I will happily embrace this future. A future of humans and machines. With much more emphasis on the humans.

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And for something that made me chuckle, here’s the best newspaper headline I’ve spotted on the subject: “Unexpected human in the bagging area”. Give that sub a pay rise! (And yes, I have just quoted the Daily Star…)