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<strong>Overlooked</strong>: Surveillance and personal privacy in modern Britain 41 to review, ultimately by the Data Protection Board which has a duty to supervise and powers of inspection. Complaints are made to a local council or a court. These experiences illustrate the value of specific safeguards, even where these are in addition to constitutional provisions protecting privacy. In the US, the ACLU is running a “camera campaign” for legislation to regulate the use of visual surveillance. The dramatic expansion of capacity is another common theme, with Sweden going so far as to impose technological limits. Regulatory schemes appear to be most advanced in those countries that have either adopted privacy legislation, or have introduced specific legislation permitting CCTV, and incorporating requirements on its introduction and management. Public opinion will be an important factor in determining the future direction of CCTV in the UK. It is particularly significant at present, as the coming year may represent a critical point in the application of public space visual surveillance systems in the UK. The Crime Reduction Delivery Board has been commissioned by the Home Office to prepare a national strategy for CCTV 85 . As stated earlier, the ICO has also launched a consultation on the revised code of practice. The debate generated by these initiatives will take place in the context of a demand for further massive public investment, to replace outdated analogue video systems, many of dubious value, with digital technology. Public support for CCTV has apparently been sustained throughout the last decade, despite a lack of evidence that it is effective in reducing crime, or is having an impact on the fear of crime. The apparent lack of informed public critical concern about potential privacy issues indicates that there could well be a lack of balance in any public discourse. It is clear that the government money invested in public space CCTV has produced mixed, even poor, results. Home Office case studies published in 2004 led to the conclusion that, “At best CCTV can work alongside other measures to generate some changes, but it is no easy panacea, and there is a lot still to be learnt about how to use it to best effect” 86 . These fourteen studies showed variations in whether schemes had had an impact on fear of crime, indicating no reduction in town centre areas, but reductions in some but not all residential areas examined. As in past evaluations, there are inevitable difficulties in evaluating and drawing conclusions from schemes with individually distinct characteristics. In general terms, it has also been suggested that caution should be exercised when considering and drawing conclusions from reports of opinion research on surveillance and privacy 87 . The ICO sought to draw out more considered and informed opinion by conducting a series of discussion groups with carefully selected members of the public, to provide the basis of policy recommendations to government on the future management of visual surveillance technology 88 . It emerged that public sector CCTV is perceived as benign, an anti-crime measure that brings benefit to individuals with few disadvantages of which people are conscious. Another relevant factor in public support for CCTV is trust in authority, and a genuine belief in the fairness of the system of law 85 Time for a new plan In CCTV Image, the official publication of the CCTV User Group, Summer 2006, www.cctvimage.com/downloads/CCTV_Image_16_Summer_2006.pdf [20 December 2006] 86 The Impact of CCTV: fourteen case studies, Home Office Online Report 15/05 2005, at p36 87 Haggerty, K.D, & Gazso, A., The Public Politics of Opinion Research on Surveillance and Privacy, in Surveillance & Society 3(2/3): 173-180. The authors advise caution over response rates, and critical scrutiny over how surveys are constructed and interpreted. 88 Public attitudes to the deployment of surveillance techniques in public places, ICO March 2004
42 <strong>Overlooked</strong>: Surveillance and personal privacy in modern Britain enforcement and criminal justice. CCTV in public places, particularly where notices are displayed, is not generally thought to intrude on personal privacy, a concept associated with the home. Further discussion showed that people also believe that privacy applies to their conversations, financial information and personal whereabouts, and for many people incorporates a sense of protection of personal dignity and personal integrity. Support weakens when considering the application of potentially more intrusive surveillance technologies, when the balance of elements of personal protection and potential disadvantage to the individual tipped away from the benign protection offered by CCTV. Overall, the ICO research found that, before people were presented with the opportunity for more informed and deeper thinking about the impact of visual surveillance, there was “a general unquestioning assumption that CCTV works”, and that despite qualifying this from recalled experience, confidence in public systems remained strong. Positive claims for CCTV in the media could be recalled, but no-one was able to cite stories to the contrary. A sense of personal protection has been created in areas covered by cameras, particularly when these involve real time recording, allowing immediate police or local authority response. However, this confidence does not extend to more intrusive surveillance technologies. There is no reliable information available on the public response to new ventures, such as the attachment of loudspeakers to CCTV systems in public places 89 , or the proposed use of microphones in connection with cameras in the security infrastructure for the Olympic Games in 2012 90 . The detail of these and other technological advances may challenge the non-specialist, but, as the Article 29 Working Party has observed, “the growing proliferation of video surveillance techniques can be easily appreciated by all citizens” 91 . Yet it does appear from the ICO research that public opinion in general is not fully informed. A focus on reports of the successful identification of those responsible for crime masks a much more complex situation in which individuals have a wider interest. As noted by the Working Party, “the development of available technology, digitalisation and miniaturisation considerably increase the opportunities provided by image and sound recording devices, also in connection with their deployment on intranets and the Internet. These are dimensions on which the ICO report suggests the public are likely to have opinions” 92 . Misuse of surveillance data Even when the potential for misuse of surveillance images is drawn to people’s attention, their confidence is unlikely to be shaken: “they still tend to fall back on their own experience, which tells them that in real life the risks arising from CCTV are small, whereas the potential benefits are seen as very great” 93 . In fact, the number of reported instances of abuse leading to prosecution on the 89 It is reported that seven CCTV cameras in Middlesbrough town centre now have a sound facility which allows operatives to give advice or intervene in incidents as they happen. http://www.middlesbrough.gov.uk/ccm/content/news/middlesbrough-council-press-releases/youveheard-nothing-yet-cctv-wired-for-sound.en 27.07.06 [20.12.06] 90 The BBC reported as controversial a proposal to use high-powered microphones on crowds at the London Olympics, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6186348.stm [20.12.06] 91 Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, 11750/02/EN WP89 92 http://www.statewatch.org/news/2004/mar/wp89-video.pdf 93 ICO, 2004 all references to ICO research on public opinion rely on this report.
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