Why do CCTV images are different from other common cameras?

Are companies allowed to share CCTV images of unknowing individuals for non-security purposes?

• I make a lot of money from gambling on football in bookmakers in the UK and due to this I am often restricted to the amount I can put on at any one time - which is well within the bookmakers rights to do so. However, I recently found out that the largest bookmaker chain in the UK (Ladbrokes) has been sending CCTV images of me along with my full name to all its branches to advise their workers not to accept large bets from me. Is this allowed under the Data Protection Act? As the signs in the shops regarding the CCTV cameras state they are there to prevent crime and for general safety, are they not breaking this act and misusing the cameras to meet their own ends? I am not in anyway breaking any law by gambling in the shops and feel my name has been tarnished due to this. Thanks in Advance

• Answer:

  This is allowed. By entering a premises where the signs are posted you are giving implied consent for them to use your image as they see fit within the operation of their business. What you are doing is not criminal, but what is happening is similar in effect to someone writing a bad check at one store location, and that merchant notifying their other locations not to accept checks. Except that they are not preventing you from placing bets at these other locations; they are simply extending their legitimate restrictions on you to their other outlets. And I fail to understand how your good name is being tarnished. If several employees at the one location you frequent are privy to your image and the wager limits, how does it make it worse if other employees of the same company have access to the same? If they were passing it around with the admonishment "Do not take large wagers from this pedophile" then I think you'd have a point. Time for the fake moustache and eyeglasses.