|
|
|
Nearly all CCTV cameras ‘are illegal’ |
 We are living in the surveillance age but 90 per cent of Britain’s 14.2 million closed-circuit television cameras may be failing to comply with the law.
A new national advisory body of the industry, CameraWatch, which has the backing of the police and the Information Commissioner’s Office, claimed yesterday that the vast majority of CCTV is used incorrectly and could potentially be inadmissible in court.
The organisation’s chairman, Gordon Ferrie, the international head of security for RBS and a former director of the fraud squad in Strathclyde, said that the danger were pressing, given the growth in the industry.
“Our research shows that up to 90 per cent of CCTV installations fail to comply with the Information Commissioner’s UK CCTV code of practice, and many installations are operated illegally. That has profound implications for the reputation of the CCTV and camera surveillance industry and all concerned with it,” he said.
The proliferation of CCTV used by councils, housing associations, businesses, private individuals and police mobile units means that there is estimated to be one camera for every 14 people. The Home Office has committed £63 million to installing systems.
Mr Ferrie, who said that he had used CCTV footage as a police officer to convict murderers, gave warning that legal counsel “could drive a horse and cart” through most CCTV evidence. That, he said, was not in anybody’s best interests. “We do not want to get into a situation where every image is challenged in court,” he said.
CameraWatch. A non-profit making independent body, maintains that most CCTV cameras in public areas breach the Data Protection Act and, in some cases, the Human Rights Act. The Data Protection Act is breached in several common ways. The most frequent is the failure to keep camera tapes secure. Under the Act, human images should be treated as confidential information in the same way as names, addresses and phone numbers.
The arrival of digital cameras poses yet more problems, for the images can be transferred across open internet connections rather than remaining on a closed loop.
Viewing monitors are often wrongly sited in public areas, so other people can see who is being filmed, and a number of the 3,500 CCTV systems are not registered under the Data Protection Act, as is required.
CCTV evidence is now seen as being as vital a tool as DNA in the fight against crime. Dozens of convictions are made on evidence from cameras.
Senior police officers in England have expressed fears over the issue of legal compliance although the matter has yet to be tested in court.
A spokeswoman for the Director of Public Prosecutions said “If it is part of the evidence then it will be for the defendant to challenge if they felt that in some way the CCTV did not comply with the law.”
Paul McBride, QC, who practises in Scotland, said that the point of non-compliant CCTV evidence had not yet been tested but he doubted that it would lead to a case failing. “I can’t imagine any judge saying such evidence was not admissible when there is the argument that it is in the greater public good,” he said.
‘A lawyer can drive a horse and cart through the proof’
Ken Macdonald the assistant information commissioner (Scotland), speaking at the launch in Edinburgh, said that he welcomed CameraWatch as a positive step to drive up standards of CCTV operation and enforcement. His organisation, which launched a report, last November branding Britain as a surveillance society, with individuals likely to be filmed by 300 cameras every day, is revising its code of practice in compliance with the Data Protection Act.
The Information Commissioner’s Office believes that CCTV is not the answer in all circumstances. It regards the siting of cameras as critical and is concerned about the gathering of “excessive information”.
John Pollock, representing the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (Acpos) at the launch, said that CCTV was of critical importance. Non-compliance of evidence, he said, would be only in the criminal’s interests.
As written by Melanie Reid
The Times May 31st 2007.
|
|
|
|
