Overlooked - Liberty

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Overlooked: Surveillance and personal privacy in modern Britain 35 The position in 2007 4. Visual Surveillance The year 2007 is a good point to revisit the introduction of closed circuit television in the UK, to examine the current profile of public sector CCTV applications, to consider whether the original confidence and anxieties were well placed, and whether the remedies devised during that time have proved effective. It is just over ten years since the then Home Secretary, Michael Howard, made the initial decision to commit substantial sums of public money to set up hundreds of public sector surveillance systems throughout the UK, making use of the untested medium of closed circuit television. The original aim was to establish public systems as a crime prevention and detection measure, run principally by local authorities, or through partnerships with the police, with an emphasis on public safety: “to reduce crime and the fear of crime” 68 . A frenzy of public investment followed in the years after Howard’s decision, in parallel with the expansion of CCTV in the commercial sector. By 2006, the Information Commissioner could report the existence of a total of 4.2 million CCTV cameras – 1 for every 14 people 69 . It is hard to generalise about CCTV systems. Schemes have in common the use of cameras, but other factors may be unique: they have been established in town and city centres, shopping malls, car parks, residential and light industrial areas, parks, transport stations, schools, universities and hospitals. Evaluation has proved difficult too, depending on the type of records kept, the figures chosen for comparison, and locally distinct social, environmental and cultural factors. Initially, as a result of concerns about civil liberties expressed by local councillors and organisations such as Liberty, the emerging industry relied upon voluntary codes of practice, published first by the Local Government Information Unit, and later by the security industry. The revision of data protection law provided the opportunity for the introduction of a code of practice, published in 2000 and the 68 The Impact of CCTV: fourteen case studies, Home Office Online Report 15/05, 2005 69 A Report on the Surveillance Society, The Surveillance Studies Network, ICO, 2006
36 Overlooked: Surveillance and personal privacy in modern Britain responsibility of the Information Commissioner. With data protection requirements being the only applicable domestic law, and interpretations of the European Convention on Human Rights still emerging, the progressive expansion of CCTV in the UK has relied more on stretching the boundaries of what is acceptable to the public and politicians, than on meeting any testing regulatory standards. Public acceptance, and perceptions of the success of CCTV systems in achieving the original objectives of managing crime, are unchanged, and support continuing use and expansion. What has changed is the nature of CCTV itself, the technology and potential and actual applications of camera systems far exceeding the terms of the original set of possibilities and constraints. Early CCTV systems relied upon analogue recording on videotape, depended upon the contemporaneous activities of control rooms employing qualified staff, and focused on providing evidence to support prosecutions in the event of criminal activity being caught on camera. The key issues were the quality of the image obtained, the skills and standards demonstrated by operatives, the management of operation rooms, and controls on the retention and handling of tapes. With overt use of cameras, the importance of signage, in notifying people in public spaces of the presence of cameras, was also established. Now, technology, and the uses to which it can be put, has moved on, and it is more appropriate to talk of visual surveillance than of CCTV. The key issues retain their priority, but additional problems are emerging. Digital recording has led to the development of face recognition systems and biometric recognition techniques capable of incorporation into public place systems. Other physical and behavioural recognition systems are also under development. Failures of technology, inadequate public understanding, and the need for safeguards and protection systems become more important as technology becomes more sophisticated, and surveillance systems can potentially be linked digitally to other databases. These issues are not confined to public space surveillance. Cameras as a tool of traffic management systems are not new, and cameras are an integral part of congestion charging schemes. The move from videotape to digital recording expands the potential of camera systems. Hailing “spies that never sleep”, the London Evening Standard reported in March 2006 on the installation of “new digital devices (that) run 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year and are capable of catching vast numbers of motorists”. The system, which will reportedly involve a constant data stream from 50 cameras, was said by the London Safety Camera Partnership to already have had a deterrent effect on motor crime that can be measured by a reduction in road deaths 70 . Many local authorities are considering the use of Automatic Number Plate Recognition systems, a tool for tracking vehicles during or after a crime is in progress: initially this is being considered in connection with serious crime, but there are no technical limits to its potential application. There is a potential to link overt public surveillance systems with this capacity, with other digital databases for directed surveillance. At present, ANPR systems are not controlled as directed surveillance under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000: this issue would have to be addressed before these linkages could be made. However, with this general expansion of capability, regulation of the processing and retention of data becomes ever more important. 70 Evening Standard, 15 March 2006.
Page 1 and 2: Overlooked: Surveillance and person
Page 3 and 4: Acknowledgements I would like to th
Page 5 and 6: II Overlooked: Surveillance and per
Page 7 and 8: iv Overlooked: Surveillance and per
Page 9 and 10: 2 Overlooked: Surveillance and pers
Page 17 and 18: 10 Overlooked: Surveillance and per
Page 41: 34 Overlooked: Surveillance and per
Page 93 and 94:
86 Overlooked: Surveillance and per
Page 95 and 96:
Page 97 and 98:
Page 99 and 100:
Page 101 and 102:
Page 103 and 104:
Page 105 and 106:
Page 107 and 108:
100 Overlooked: Surveillance and pe
Page 109 and 110:
Page 111 and 112:
Page 113 and 114:
Page 115 and 116:
Page 117 and 118:
Page 119 and 120:
Page 121 and 122:
Page 123 and 124:
Page 125 and 126:
Page 127 and 128:
Page 129 and 130:
Page 131 and 132:
Page 133 and 134:
Page 135 and 136:
show all

Overlooked - Liberty

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?