NO CCTV

A group of students at Davenant Foundation School in Loughton, Essex were so horrified when they found surveillance cameras had been installed in their classroom that they walked out. When they returned they did so wearing masks.

Two of the students explain what happened in a recent Guardian article:

Earlier this year, on a school day like any other, we shuffled into our politics class at 11.20 on a Monday morning. What we didn’t notice straight away were four tinted CCTV domes hanging from the ceiling including a huge monitor dome staring right at us. Confusion and anger broke out among us. A teacher casually stated that they were for teacher training purposes. After a thought of "God, George Orwell was right", some of us angrily packed up and left – we weren’t comfortable working in a classroom with cameras.
 
It turned out that our entire class was angry or confused over the cameras. Out of a class of 18 students, 17 felt uncomfortable with the idea and decided to boycott the room until the issue, and the students, were addressed. This was a difficult decision as we were three months away from exams and we had five lessons a fortnight in the room. The student body was supportive and a petition gained over 130 signatures from the sixth-form.

A piece in the Waltham Forest Guardian states:

The school, an accredited teacher training centre, said the equipment has been installed in two classrooms to capture footage showing examples of best practice in the profession, and would not be used without pupils' knowledge.

But as the students point out:

Lessons continued, although a few weeks later when students discovered that the recording system was in a cupboard in our classroom the microphones were found to in fact be switched on. We switched them off.

The students have now taken the matter to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the watchdog that is supposed to protect access to personal information in the UK. Back in February Classwatch, a company that sells "in-class AV recording system that assists teaching and professional development, helps control behaviour and offers protection for staff and pupils, and security for assets", met with the Information Commissioner to seek guidance "on the Data Protection issues raised with the installation of Classwatch® systems". The guidance, published on the Classwatch website, is predictably disappointing and raises no issues regarding the surveillance of teaching staff who it appears are fair game:

In summary the ICO recognises the positive applications of Classwatch under the teacher's control for the purpose of training, reflective practice etc.
 
Where there is a clear and justified need for Classwatch to be used for asset protection in the same classroom then audio needs to be switched off during the times specified that the system is in video only mode (which will be out of lesson time coverage).

Surely teacher training could be achieved using a simple video camera on a tripod temporarily at the front of the classroom as and when required. Cheap, easy to use and clearly identifiable as to whether it is on and who it is pointing at. But no profits for Classwatch and their kind of course.

The ICO guidance goes on to say:

* The ICO acknowledge that there may be circumstances that justify installing a system for the purpose of addressing problem behaviour. The ICO stress that constant filming and sound recording is likely to be unacceptable unless there is a pressing need - for example, if there is an ongoing problem of assaults or criminal damage.
 
* The ICO agree that one person's prank is another person's distressing incident but constant video monitoring of all children in a class cannot be justified in their view with reference to the need to address classroom disruption.
 
* Any policy on acceptable use of the system should set out clear guidelines on when footage collected for the ‘continuing professional development’ purpose can be consulted and used to investigate classroom incidents. It is unlikely to be acceptable to the ICO to use footage to deal with trivial incidents.

The Information Commissioner does not get to the heart of issues such as the principle that in a Common Law country you are free to do anything that isn't specifically legislated against, the fundamental legal principle of 'innocent until proven guilty or the wider issues of personal privacy. That is because the commissioner's role is merely to enforce the Data Protection and Freedom of Information Acts. The Data Protection Act consists of a series of caveats and opt outs effectively to justify removing our rights. CCTV in schools is a dangerous expansion of an already over surveilled society that normalises surveillance for children who will not recall a time without it and undermines trust in pupils, teachers and lecturers.

At the end of this month the current commissioner Richard Thomas is stepping down and will be replaced by Christopher Graham, the current Director General of the Advertising Standards Authority.

The students at Davenant Foundation School have come in for criticism since taking a stand against excessive surveillance so we leave the last word to them:

The criticism of our campaign only serves to illustrate the ignorance of adults who have surrendered within only the last few years our right to protest in parliament, our right to go about our business without being stopped and questioned by police about our identity and our affairs, and our personal privacy.

The Metropolitan Police have released a poster that suggests that people who look at CCTV cameras are terrorists. The poster is one of a series launched as part of the police's "new campaign to urge Londoners to report suspicious activity". The text of the poster (below) says: "A bomb won’t go off here because weeks before a shopper reported someone studying the CCTV cameras".

The original poster

The ridiculous posters have sparked a comedy backlash with parodies popping up all over the internet. The response has been similar to that following another absurd campaign by the Met police last year that suggested taking photographs was suspicious behaviour.

A parody

More parodies of these posters can be found on the boing boing website.

Meanwhile Privacy International has drafted a formal letter of complaint to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson. The letter states:

we take issue with the proposition that anyone "studying" CCTV cameras may constitute a threat to security. These cameras are supposed to be visible and conspicuous. The Data Protection Act, as you know, requires that their installation and existence is not secretive unless in prescribed circumstances.
 
How then is it reasonable or appropriate to urge the public to report scrutiny of what is, in effect, a piece of street furniture? And what constitutes the act of “studying”? CCTV has become a prominent and in places a unique feature of modern Britain, and millions of tourists every year go out of their way to take photographs of these devices. Is the Met suggesting that every such tourist should be reported? Should a local resident who wishes to scrutinize for legitimate reasons a part of the local environment anticipate a report to the terrorism hotline?

It is interesting to note that the police seem to be admitting that CCTV does bugger all, as in the scenario they put forward in their poster it is not the CCTV camera that spots someone studying it but a shopper. Maybe they plan to replace surveillance cameras with surveillance shoppers throughout the UK...

Andrew Wood has won his landmark case against the Metropolitan Police in the Court of Appeal. The case relates to the police's use of surveillance with regard to law abiding protesters in the UK.

In April 2005 Andrew, who worked for the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), attended the Annual General Meeting of Reed Elsevier. As he left the meeting the police followed him, repeatedly photographed him and sought to establish his identity (see our previous blog entry for more details). Andrew took the police to judicial review for their 'routine' surveillance of a person going about their lawful business and engaged in political activity.

The court has now ruled that the police action was in breach of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the 'Right to respect for private and family life', and specifically 8(1) of the convention: "Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence". The judgment also makes reference to the recent victory for civil liberties in the case of Marper with regards to the retention of innocent peoples' DNA on the National DNA Database.

The judgment states:

On the particular facts the police action, unexplained at the time it happened and carrying as it did the implication that the images would be kept and used, is a sufficient intrusion by the State into the individual's own space, his integrity, as to amount to a prima facie violation of Article 8(1). It attains a sufficient level of seriousness and in the circumstances the appellant enjoyed a reasonable expectation that his privacy would not be thus invaded. Moreover I consider with respect that this conclusion is supported by the judgment of the Strasbourg court in Marper. It will be recalled that the first sentence of paragraph 67 reads:

"The mere storing of data relating to the private life of an individual amounts to an interference within the meaning of Article 8..."

In his closing remarks, Lord Collins of Mapesbury expresses concern about the wider surveillance state and CCTV:

Nevertheless, it is plain that the last word has yet to be said on the implications for civil liberties of the taking and retention of images in the modern surveillance society. This is not the case for the exploration of the wider, and very serious, human rights issues which arise when the State obtains and retains the images of persons who have committed no offence and are not suspected of having committed any offence.

In a recent Guardian article Andrew wrote:

Occasionally people joke "here comes the law" when referring to the police. But the police aren't the law, and they are subject to the law – just like you and I. Today a ruling by the court of appeal found the police had broken the law when they undertook a "routine surveillance" operation against Campaign Against Arms Trade in 2005 – a period in which I was CAAT's press officer.

[...]

Today's court of appeal ruling maintains that, while the police photography was undertaken in a public place, there was a reasonable expectation of privacy and the photography could not be separated from its use, ie the creation of a police file. The judgment relied on the recent ruling of the European court of human rights regarding the retention of DNA profiles (Marper v UK) and other case law. Today's judgment limits the retention of photographs and other information unless there is a genuine ongoing criminal investigation; there was no crime or further criminal investigation resulting from the AGM of Reed Elsevier in 2005.

At the back of my mind throughout the four years it has taken to reach today's decision was the statement by Richard Thomas, the government's information commissioner, that Britain would "sleep-walk" into a surveillance society. In a very small way, my work and that of my solicitors and barrister Martin Westgate has drawn a line in the sand: the arbitrary retention of people's photographs by the state is wrong, breaches the law and must stop.

More information about the case can be found at www.judicialreview.org.uk.
Read the full judgment at www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2009/414.html&query=title+(+Wood+)&method=boolean

The mainstream media has been awash with stories of the ineffectiveness of CCTV in light of a recent report conducted by The Campbell Collaboration. 'Effects of Closed Circuit Television Surveillance on Crime' is a meta-analysis of 41 CCTV evaluations in four main settings: city and town centres; public housing; public transport; and car parks.

Below is a selection of articles:

• The truth outs – CCTV doesn't cut crime - The Guardian
• Big Brother isn't working: How £500m of CCTV cameras does 'next to nothing' to cut crime - Daily Mail
• CCTV only effective at cutting car crime - Daily Telegraph
• CCTV only effective at cutting car crime - The Metro
• CCTV schemes in city and town centres have little effect on crime, says report - The Guardian
• CCTV ‘is failing to cut crime’ - The Sun

The Campbell Collaboration report, a summary of which is to be made available to UK police forces this summer, concludes:

Exactly what the optimal circumstances are for effective use of CCTV schemes is not entirely clear at present, and this needs to be established by future evaluation research (see below). But it is important to note that the success of the CCTV schemes in car parks was mostly limited to a reduction in vehicle crimes (the only crime type measured in 5 of the 6 schemes) and camera coverage was high for those evaluations that reported on it. In the national British evaluation of the effectiveness of CCTV, Farrington (2007b) found that effectiveness was significantly correlated with the degree of coverage of the CCTV cameras, which was greatest in car parks. Furthermore, all 6 car park schemes included other interventions, such as improved lighting and security guards [emphasis added]. It is plausible to suggest that CCTV schemes with high coverage and other interventions and targeted on vehicle crimes are effective.

Conversely, the evaluations of CCTV schemes in city and town centers and public housing measured a much larger range of crime types and only a small number of studies involved other interventions. These CCTV schemes, as well as those focused on public transport, did not have a significant effect on crime.

This is what No CCTV and others have been saying for some time - CCTV is not an effective crime fighting tool. And this is not the first report to reach this conclusion - a similar Home Office study in 2002 said the same thing. But rather than halt CCTV expansion in the wake of such reports CCTV use has increased. The Home Office will call for more studies in the hope that one will give the answer they want. But the important thing to take from this latest report is that it is up to the public not the government to halt CCTV expansion.

Decisions about CCTV installation are made at a local level by local councils. The public must take on board the findings in this study. Many people believe that they are trading a little bit of freedom for increased security or crime prevention - this simply is not true. We must hold the custodians of public money to account. We must demand that they prove the case for CCTV with real evidence to back it up before wasting yet more money on this illiberal technology. It is up to all of us to stop the spread of surveillance before it is too late.

As Sir Ken Macdonald QC, the outgoing Director of Public Prosecutions warned last year with regards to the growing surveillance state:

[...] we should take very great care to imagine the world we are creating before we build it. We might end up living with something we can't bear.

Privacy international (PI) is calling for a review of the Information Commissioner following a series of failed judgements culminating in their recent complaint against Google Street View. Privacy International says that the Commissioner has failed to uphold the principles and the spirit of the Data Protection Act.

The Commissioner recently overruled a complaint by Privacy International who argued that Google should have instituted stronger privacy protections and that it should have pursued full notice and consent for its activities. The Commissioner responded on 30th March arguing that Street View did not breach the Data Protection Act and that the service should proceed unhindered.

In a press release on the ruling the Information Commissioner said:

In the same way there is no law against anyone taking pictures of people in the street as long as the person using the camera is not harassing people. Google Street View does not contravene the Data Protection Act and, in any case, it is not in the public interest to turn the digital clock back.

Privacy International in their press release responded:

The Information Commissioner has clearly decided that pragmatism and commercial interest should triumph over principle. This is a dangerous trend and one that is clearly responsible for Britain's appalling surveillance culture. For a regulatory body in any domain to take such an approach would be an abdication of its responsibility; for the statement to be so blatant about their disregard is unforgiveable.

Privacy International pointed out: "While this appalling disregard for openness and process is a worrying trend across the global regulatory landscape, as an international watchdog we can attest that we have not witnessed degradation to the extent demonstrated by the UK ICO [Information Commissioners Office]."

Privacy International is calling for a 'root and branch' overhaul of the Commissioner's Office by Parliament. Read their full press release here.

Meanwhile Google has announced an experimental search engine tool 'Similar Images' - an image search which uses a picture rather than text to find other matching images. When Street View launched we warned:

Another technology in the pipeline is image searching based on a starting image. When that is perfected it will be possible to enter say an anti-war poster and then search Google Street View images to find places where such a poster is displayed. Whilst this feature may not be on the front page of Google it is likely that police and security services will have the ability.

Experts have been predicting that this sort of technology would take around ten years to perfect on the internet but it now appears Google may have the capability of this type of search much sooner. It is incredible that the Information Commissioners Office, the body set up to "promote access to official information and to protect personal information", should have no issue with Google Street View and state that "it is not in the public interest to turn the digital clock back". At some point limits must be defined otherwise technological advancements will continue to dismantle privacy until none is left.

Clearly the Data Protection Act and the Information Commissioners Office are failing. If we care at all about our privacy, it is up to us to preserve it.

A group of digital photography students from London South Bank University felt so strongly about the unchecked proliferation of surveillance cameras in the UK that they have devised an anti-CCTV advertising campaign for No CCTV. The students have come up with a series of poster designs that present in a humorous way the feeling of being watched as you go about your daily life and illustrating "the unnecessary and somewhat ominous nature of this surveillance". The team, made up of Anita, Arte, Dana, Charlotte and Aaron used simple and effective slogans such as "It's rude to stare" and "Who watches the watchers?".

Image by Charlotte Miceli

The campaign uses a camera headed man to illustrate the ever present CCTV camera. Arte said: "By creating a human/camera hybrid character in the images as well as for the campaign logo we hope to re-engage the audience's attention that CCTV camera operators are watching them and that the surveillance emanates from an unseen 'authority' that undermines our right to privacy".

Many thanks to Anita, Arte, Dana, Charlotte and Aaron for all the hard work they put into the campaign. We will put all of the campaign images on the No CCTV website soon and we hope to turn their designs into t-shirts and posters and make them available. Of course if there's anyone out there with a few thousand pounds to spare to pay for a billboard and/or newspaper launch of the campaign then we'd love to hear from you!

Following controversy over the use of surveillance powers by local authorities the government has launched a consultation: Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000: Consolidating Orders and Codes of Practice. The government is suggesting that a bit of tinkering with the powers such as "raising the seniority of those who can authorise techniques under RIPA, and increasing the oversight, in local authorities" will make everything okay.

In their consultation document the government wheels out the standard fictitious balancing act between freedom and security used by governments whenever they want to remove freedoms. The introduction states:

Our country has a proud tradition of defending individual freedom – by protecting people’s freedom from those who would do us harm and by safeguarding individuals’ privacy from unjustified interference by the State. The Government is responsible for protecting both types of freedom. In order to do this, we must ensure that the police and other public authorities have the powers they need to carry out their functions. But we must also ensure that those powers are not used inappropriately. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (‘RIPA’) is central to protecting both types of freedom.

Suggesting that RIPA, an act described as a 'Snoopers Charter', is central to protecting privacy is an insult to the intelligence of UK citizens. RIPA has been a controversial piece of legislation since its publication in 2000. Many powers have been added under secondary legislation without proper debate, including The Data Retention (EC Directive) Regulations 2009 made earlier this month which introduced a new mandatory requirement for Internet Service Providers and telecommunications companies to store communications traffic data logfiles for 12 months.

The powers that local councils have abused were themselves bestowed upon them following a consultation back in 2003 called 'Access to Communications Data respecting privacy and protecting the public from crime'. According to the summary of responses that consultation received just 178 responses: "Of those 31 were from commercial organisations, 27 from a variety of interest groups, 52 from individuals and 68 from public authorities".

The government then introduced two pieces of secondary legislation without parliamentary debate: The Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Communications Data) Order 2003 and The Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Directed Surveillance and Covert Human Intelligence Sources) Order 2003.

The latest consultation points out that some covert surveillance does not even require RIPA authorisation as it "does not constitute intrusive or directed surveillance for the purposes of Part II of the 2000 Act and no directed or intrusive surveillance authorisation can therefore be granted". Such activity includes:

• covert surveillance by way of an immediate response to events;
• covert surveillance as part of general observation activities;
• covert surveillance not for the purposes of a specific investigation or a specific operation;
• overt use of CCTV and ANPR systems;
• certain other specific situations.

The RIPA consultation closes 10th July. Details of how to respond can be found here.

The second consultation that has been launched is entitled 'Protecting crowded places' and is described as looking at "how local authorities, businesses, the police and communities can better protect the areas where we live, work and play from the threat of terrorist attack".

In the 'crowded places' consultation documents the government presents CCTV as a terrorism fighting tool. Faced with numerous reports over the last few years that show it an expensive and poor crime prevention or detection tool, the government has decided surveillance cameras are now for counter terrorism.

The beauty of the CCTV and terrorism argument for government is that they claim they can't give us detailed information because of "national security considerations". This excuse was used in the National CCTV Strategy published in 2007, when we were told that the "Counter Terrorist Command of the Metropolitan Police (SO15), the Security Services, Home Office Terrorist Protection Unit, Home Office Scientific Development Branch, Serious and Organised Crime Agency and individuals representing elements of the national transport infrastructure" had been consulted but we couldn't know their views because of "national security considerations".

The main consultation document begins with a predictable chunk of scaremongering about the mortal danger of living in the UK and then looks at various measures that can be used to fight the invisible enemies. Published alongside this is 'Safer Places: A counter terrorism supplement' that is "intended to be a practical guide to designing counter-terrorism measures into new developments". Rather helpfully a crowded place is defined and they even manage to get "terrorist attack" into the definition to instill the phrase with maximum scare value:

A crowded place is a location or environment to which members of the public have access that may be considered potentially liable to terrorist attack by virtue of its crowd density.

The document emphasises the government's pro CCTV view without mentioning any of the inconvenient negative research into its effectiveness. and promotes the use of Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras, which are rapidly popping up all over the country despite the fact that during trials it was found that the DVLA database that the cameras are linked to was only 40% accurate.

The crowded places consultation also closes 10th July. Details of how to respond can be found here.

This government makes great play of consultations and loves to claim that they are listening to the people. In fact the government uses the consultation process to say "you had a chance to complain" - they govern by a system of "we'll do whatever WE like unless you explicitly tell us you don't want us to do it". As a result there is always a great slew of consultations running. According to the consultation website from mySociety Tell Them What You Think currently there are 172 ongoing consultations.

So will responding to a government consultation make any difference? As things stand probably not but if more people took part the government would have to do something - like scrap consultations most likely. However responding to a consultation is at the very least an extremely useful exercise in focusing your own views, someone in government will read it (whatever they may choose to do with it) and via the web it is possible to publish your own consultation response. If anyone does respond to either of these consultations, do send us a copy.

More evidence has emerged of the misuse of surveillance in the UK after information was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The Lib Dems surveyed 180 councils and found that powers granted under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) have been used 10,288 times in the last five years. Councils misused their powers in a number of ways from checking if parents live in the correct school catchment area to investigating dog fouling.

But how did it come to pass that local councils have such powers? An interesting account can be found in the recent House of Lords Constitution Committee's report 'Surveillance: Citizens and the State'. The report explains that when RIPA was passed in 2000, local authorities were not included in the list of public authorities granted surveillance powers:

During the passage of the Act, Bill Cash MP wrote to the then Home Secretary in relation to concerns raised with him that the Bill as drafted would extend the power to "a range of officials in several public-sector bodies including local authorities and … government departments." The then Minister of State, Charles Clarke MP, wrote back to Mr Cash, explaining that such concerns "may be referring to the provision in the Bill allowing for the Secretary of State to make further additions to" the list of relevant public authorities with power to obtain data "at some future stage if it is deemed necessary … by means of the affirmative resolution procedure. I can, however, confirm even at this stage that such powers will not be made available to local authorities."

Then in 2003 two Orders were passed by so called 'affirmative resolution' in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords that extended the surveillance powers to additional public authorities, including local authorities. But MPs and Peers were told that these were not new powers, just a tidying up exercise:

The debates in both Houses of Parliament when the Order was approved in 2003 seemed to indicate that these were not new powers. We wrote to Vernon Coaker on 18 December to seek clarification of this point. His response of 12 January confirmed that these were not new powers: prior to RIPA, the use of directed surveillance or covert human intelligence sources by any public authority, including local authorities, was unregulated. The Minister explained that RIPA addressed the situation and was designed to ensure that public authorities complied with the ECHR.

What an incredible example of doublespeak from Vernon Coaker MP, Home Office Minister for Crime, Policing, Counter-terrorism and Security - to suggest that granting illiberal powers of surveillance to councils is a way of complying with the European Convention on Human Rights! Councils should not have these powers - if they suspect that a crime has been or is going to be committed then they should turn to the police who can investigate the matter. Surely a council surveilling the citizens whom they are meant to represent goes against the role of the council and is ultra vires.

The RIPA powers given to local authorities were granted under false pretenses, are unnecessary, have been abused and must be removed.

A landlord in North London has won his fight against CCTV in pubs. Nick Gibson had been told by local police that he must "install CCTV capturing a head and shoulder shot of every person entering the pub" in order to get his license. Gibson wasn't happy with such demands, viewing cameras as an affront to the civil liberties of his customers, and so he determined to fight the installation of CCTV and took his battle to the media.

A letter to the Guardian led to a string of comment pieces and alarm in several newspapers, magazines, web sites, blogs as well as being discussed on radio phone in shows. This then led to the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) wading into the debate, an ICO spokesperson commenting that:

Hardwiring surveillance into the UK's pubs raises serious privacy concerns. We are concerned at the prospect of landlords being forced into installing CCTV in pubs as a matter of routine in order to meet the terms of a licence. We will now be speaking with the Metropolitan Police about the blanket requirement for licensed premises in certain boroughs to install CCTV surveillance.

In the face of such widespread attention the police/local authority were forced to climb down. Under the Licensing Act 2003 police can make recommendations in the granting of licenses, which is still controlled by local authorities. What this victory highlights is that things can be changed by people who do something, rather than give up because it seems that the fight is too hard to win. We have more power than we think we have - all it takes is for more people to follow his lead and take a stand.

Gibson told the Islington Gazzette:

The police originally requested that we put in CCTV and have now agreed that we don't have to, which is great. We now want to focus on getting the pub right and moving forwards.

Unfortunately the fight against CCTV in pubs isn't over yet. There are still powers in Clause 31 of the Policing and Crime Bill, which is currently making its way through parliament, that will be used to extend the powers of police to impose licensing conditions not only for pubs and clubs but also shops and off licenses. If this bill is passed into law then CCTV could be introduced as a condition of all licenses. Now is the time to write to your MP telling him/her about the danger to our liberties if Clause 31 of this bill is passed. You should also write to members of the House of Lords asking them to strike down these powers when the bill reaches the House of Lords.

The Drapers Arms will open CCTV free in May.

Google has launched its controversial Street View feature in the UK, publishing street level photographs of 25 cities on the internet. Street View is an extension of the Google Maps technology that already displays overhead satellite images.

Street View is a clever toy that allows people to view tourist attractions, historic sites and monuments. However, Google has also captured residential streets allowing anyone with a computer to view images of people's private homes. Often people have been captured by the system too. Google says that as the images were taken on public land they are within the law, that their system blurs faces and number plates and that you can ask to have images taken down. The obscuring is done by computer and just a scant browse through Google's images shows that it does not always work - as a result some people's faces or car number plates are clearly visible. Even where faces are obscured it can still be possible to identify people.

Whilst it is one thing to film historic sites or monuments, it is another thing to film people's private homes, driveways, gardens and cars. Surely Google should have sought the permission of people before they took the photographs. Google's claims that the system records no more than you could see just walking down the street is disingenuous - the images are more like driving down the street in a double decker bus with a long lens camera and not everyone in the world is able to walk down a quiet suburban road in Sheffield.

Google is effectively saying that privacy no longer exists. What is more no-one really seems to be able to explain the point of filming people's houses. A surprising number of posts at the end of news items seem to be from people who are thrilled to have their house on the net - surely they could just step out of their front doors and marvel at the real thing! In a celebrity dross driven world it's almost as if nothing exists until it's been on the telly or in this case the computer screen.

It is up to us to define privacy as new technology emerges - we need a certain amount of privacy to lead our lives. For instance in 2007 Facebook ran into trouble for broadcasting people's online purchases to their friends - suddenly people realised that if you want to surprise someone with a present then you need some privacy. We all tell white lies, like telling your Auntie that the curtains she wants to give you are too big for your living room, lovely though they are. What happens when your Auntie goes on Google Street View and sees your windows are in fact the right size?

Even though faces and number plates are obscured, somewhere Google holds the unobscured images. Google's assurances that people can request that images be taken down does not address the issue that Google has a database of these images. Will they actually permanently delete all versions of the images that people ask to be removed? Who will have access to the database of images? As well as the originals held by Google, images may be cached elsewhere on the net or they may have already been downloaded on to individuals' computers.

In his book No Place to Hide, Robert O'Harrow Jr. looks at companies that harvest databases for data matching and profiling. They are able to construct dossiers of individuals in the USA using extremely powerful data matching techniques on super computers. One such company was Seisint who created a data-searching product called "Matrix" which: "gave investigators nearly instant access to a rich dossier on virtually any adult in America". O'Harrow recounts how in 2002 Hank Asher, Seisent founder and inventor of Matrix, used the system to construct a profile of the so-called "Washington sniper".

It wasn’t long before he had a suspect and passed along the man’s name and number to police. His work was a testament to the power of Matrix. It was also wrong. “So I ran a profile of the distance of every one of the murders, and I came up with a guy that lived like a hundred feet from one of them, five hundred feet from another, two thousand feet from another. I mean, the glove fit,” he said. “And I sent that up to them and I can’t imagine what that poor fellow…” Asher laughed in an embarrassed way about his mistake.

Seisent has since been acquired by the UK based Reed Elsivier Group.

It is likely that police, security services and local authorities will make use of Street View. Another technology in the pipeline is image searching based on a starting image. When that is perfected it will be possible to enter say an anti-war poster and then search Google Street View images to find places where such a poster is displayed. Whilst this feature may not be on the front page of Google it is likely that police and security services will have the ability. Of course currently the images are not right up to date but commercial applications of the data are likely to drive the need to take the photos more often.

In a Times article in 2007, Technology lawyer Struan Robertson of Pinsent Masons said that whilst it is fine to take snaps of other people without their consent the rules are different for Google:

if we're taking snaps for commercial use, in which individuals are identifiable, there is no such exemption. The subjects must be notified, and that is hard for Google to do. Even a loudspeaker on top of the camera cars ("Hi, it's Google here, say 'cheese' everybody!") might not suffice.
 
The law sets extra requirements for so-called sensitive personal data: it demands explicit consent, not just notification. That means when taking pictures of someone leaving a church or sexual health clinic – which could reveal a religious belief or an illness – camera cars might need to pull over and start picking up signatures.

It is also strange at a time when photographers in the UK are being treated as terrorists that Google are allowed to photograph with impunity. Last year the UK police launched an advertising campaign in several UK cities, informing people that they should view photographers with suspicion. This ridiculous poster campaign led to a string of parodies being posted on the internet.

Privacy International is planning to legally challenge Google Street View. Even if Google wins a legal challenge and is acting within current legislative law what about common decency and fairness? Just because a technology exists does not mean we have to use it, we must think carefully about its implications.

We need to draw limits of what is and what is not acceptable in terms of Google's mapping technology. It is up to us to preserve some privacy. That said, not all uses of Google Street View are bad - for instance it can be used to highlight the position of surveillance cameras in our cities!

Police have admitted that they store photos of peaceful protesters on a criminal database. The Telegraph reports:

The Metropolitan Police last night confirmed it uses a criminal database to hold private information about protesters, including those who have not been convicted or accused of any crime.
 
The records are said to contain photos obtained by video surveillance of rallies and meetings as well as details of the demonstrators' political affiliations.
 
Activists who attended anti-war marches, climate change campaigns and protests against the proposed third Heathrow runway are among those whose personal data is stored on the Crimint database, which also contains intelligence on suspected criminals.

Nay sayers constantly tell those of us concerned about surveillance "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear", yet the people whose details are being stored on this database have done nothing other than exercise their constitutional right to protest. Who will have access to this database? We are constantly hearing about proposals to share data with police forces of other countries and people being flagged up in Criminal Records Bureau(CRB) checks when they have done nothing wrong. The UK police also have a National DNA Database containing the DNA of millions of people never convicted of a crime even though a European Court of Human Rights ruling said this was illegal.

In January we highlighted the case of Andrew Wood who as a shareholder of Reed Elsevier attended their AGM and broke no laws, yet the police followed him and repeatedly photographed him. Andrew who is a member of the Campaign Against the Arms Trade(CAAT) suspected that the police wanted to add his photo to a spotter sheet to be used at future events. It looks as though his suspicions were correct. Andrew took the police to court and the latest ruling is expected very soon.

Now powers in Clause 31 of the Policing and Crime bill could allow the installation of CCTV cameras to be a condition of licensing for all pubs, clubs, off-licences and corner shops. Once again we are asked to trust those in authority not to abuse their power. After all they don't spy on law-abiding citizens, and footage is disposed of in a timely manner - right?

Police surveillance footage recently released by the Surveillance and Society Journal shows footage of an operation to crack down on illegal street betting in Chesterfield in 1935 - now that's some retention period!

If you are concerned about the expansion of CCTV proposed in the Policing and Crime bill write to your MP telling him/her about the danger to our liberties if Clause 31 of the bill is passed. You should also write to members of the House of Lords asking them to strike down these powers when the bill reaches the House of Lords.

The issue of CCTV in pubs has hit the headlines in recent weeks after a landlord in North London revealed that police demanded he install CCTV "capturing a head and shoulder shot of every person entering the pub". Under the Licensing Act 2003 police can make recommendations in the granting of licenses, which is still controlled by local authorities.

Now the Policing and Crime Bill, which is currently making its way through parliament, will be used to extend the powers of police to impose licensing conditions not only for pubs and clubs but also shops and off licenses.

Clause 31 of the Bill "makes provision about mandatory licensing conditions relating to alcohol". Specifically this consists of:

a) a small number of mandatory licence conditions (no more than nine) that apply to all new or existing licences and club premises certificates which permit the sale of alcohol;
 
b) a larger number of permitted conditions, which the licensing authority can, in consultation with responsible authorities, apply to more than one licensed premises or club at a time

The government is asking MPs to grant enabling powers before the mandatory conditions have even been decided. This legislation allows the government to circumvent proper parliamentary debate and constitutes a blank cheque to further erode civil liberties in the UK.

If this bill is passed into law then it will amend the Licensing Act, taking even more power away from local authorities and as a result CCTV could be introduced as a condition of all licenses. Such a power could be added without proper debate and would force anyone wishing to sell alcohol to install CCTV.

The bill has finished its committee stage in the House of Commons, where MPs are meant to scrutinise the legislation and suggest amendments, yet MPs did not contest the measures in Clause 31 and it was "ordered to stand part of the bill".

The bill is expected to get its 3rd reading in the House of Commons soon. Now is the time to write to your MP telling him/her about the danger to our liberties if Clause 31 of this bill is passed. You should also write to members of the House of Lords asking them to strike down these powers when the bill reaches the House of Lords.

There is ample evidence that CCTV is not an effective crime fighting measure. As the evidence against and criticism of surveillance cameras continues to mount it seems that the government is intent on expanding blanket surveillance regardless.

It is becoming all too common in the UK for police to impose illiberal demands as a condition of getting a pub license. The latest demand that has come to light is requiring that pubs install CCTV cameras. One landlord in North London was told by local police that he must "install CCTV capturing a head and shoulder shot of every person entering the pub". Nick Gibson who wants to re-open the Drapers Arms in Islington was not happy with this as he quite rightly believes it as an affront to the civil liberties of his customers.

Under the Licensing Act 2003 police can make recommendations in the granting of licenses, which is still controlled by local authorities. However it seems that the police have taken it upon themselves to actually impose conditions. It is effectively the police who are granting or refusing licenses. Police in many areas such as Richmond and Thames Valley have imposed blanket CCTV requirements similar to Islington.

Pubs have effectively become a front-line in the battle over our freedoms in the UK. Pubs now routinely ask for photo ID such as drivers license and passport, whilst some even ask customers to be fingerprinted before having a pint. For more on fingerprinting in pubs see NO2ID.

Many of these measures are introduced under the banner of "PubWatch" or "Safer[Insert name of town]" - shadowy coalitions of bodies that allow policy laundering by local authorities and police. When we asked a local pub who introduced mandatory ID-ing of customers they told us it was the police as part of PubWatch. When we asked the police they said it was the local authority. When we asked the local authority they said it was the pub. Nobody took ownership of the decision. A similar situation will no doubt emerge with regards to CCTV.

Going to a pub is not an illegal act. Under age drinking does not warrant the blanket suspicion and illiberal treatment of us all. CCTV is not an effective crime fighting tool particularly in situations where alcohol fuelled violence takes place.

Unfortunately it seems that far too many people will give up their freedoms for a pint. It's time to boycott illiberal pubs. Don`t give in and get a home-brew kit - get angry and do something. There are many ways in which we can fight for our Liberties.

No CCTV will be at the satellite Convention on Modern Liberty in Bristol on Saturday 28th February.

No CCTV will be taking part in the satellite Convention on Modern Liberty in Bristol on 28th February. The event which will be at the Trinity Centre, Trinity Road, Bristol. No CCTV will be facilitating a campaigners workshop on live and upcoming campaign issues with practical advice on how to get involved.

The Bristol event is a parallel Convention to the main Convention on Modern Liberty in London. There will be live video feeds of the Plenary debates and Keynote speeches from London - a full programme can be found on the Modern Liberty website www.modernliberty.net. The conveners of the Convention describe just why it is so important that we explore freedoms in the UK at this time:

We are entering a dangerous period in our country. Economic turmoil threatens profound hardship and disharmony. Disenchantment with politics is growing and even legitimate protest is threatened by an unprecedented programme of challenges to our rights, freedoms and democracy. Sixty years ago Britain was a proud co-author of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Now it is increasingly centralized, abandoning its historic principles some of which date back to the Magna Carta.

The Convention will ask three broad questions:

• Are our freedoms and rights threatened by an over-powerful state and if so how do we defend ourselves from this?
• Are dangers to our security from terrorism and other threats, from climate change to pandemics being used to attack our rights, and how can we best defend ourselves?
• How can we arouse sustained public interest?

The satellite Convention in Bristol is free to attend and runs from 9.15am to 5.15pm.

Today the House of Lords Constitution Committee published the final report of their Inquiry into Surveillance and Data Collection. The report entitled 'Surveillance: Citizens and the State' observes that: "There has been a profound and continuous expansion in the surveillance apparatus of both the state and the private sector".

In the press release that accompanied the report Lord Goodlad, Chairman of the House of Lords Constitution Committee, said:

"The UK now has more CCTV cameras and a bigger National DNA Database than any other country. There can be no justification for this gradual but incessant creep towards every detail about us being recorded and pored over by the state."

The committee notes that even police like Graeme Gerrard (Deputy Chief Constable of the Cheshire Constabulary and Chair of ACPO’s CCTV Working Group) acknowledge that CCTV is not nearly as effective as many would have us believe:

“The evidence and academic research that I have seen says it is very effective in places like car parks … but in terms of our town centres, where a lot of the behaviour is violent or disorderly … often fuelled by alcohol, people are not thinking rationally, they get angry and the CCTV camera is the last thing they think about and even the presence of police officers does not deter them … In terms of reducing crime there are mixed results … there was some quite good indication that it reduces the public’s fear of crime."

The committee unfortunately did not pick up on the research that shows CCTV does not reduce fear of crime and suggests that in many cases cameras actually increase fear.

The committee recommends "that the Home Office commission an independent appraisal of the existing research evidence on the effectiveness of CCTV in preventing, detecting and investigating crime". This seems strange as in 2002 the Home Office commissioned Home Office Research Study 252 'Crime prevention effects of closed circuit television:a systematic review' which did exactly that and found that:

"Overall, the best current evidence suggests that CCTV reduces crime to a small degree. CCTV is most effective in reducing vehicle crime in car parks, but it had little or no effect on crime in public transport and city centre settings."

The report also calls for regulation of CCTV in the public and private sector and a code of practise that is legally binding. Whilst this may seem like a sensible approach there is a danger that it will simply add legitimacy to ever expanding camera surveillance. No CCTV feels that such regulation must also define clear unbreachable boundaries to protect the citizen from unnecessary intrusions of the state.

You can download or read the report at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld/ldconst.htm#reports

By Andrew Wood

In the debate over CCTV the two sides are presented in a very polarised light: those for CCTV believe they are upholding the law and reducing crime; those against believe they are upholding civil liberties and freedoms. But what if CCTV was in fact unlawful? What if its use contravened laws which uphold our rights and freedoms?

Often the only way that such questions of lawfulness are resolved is through court action but the potential costs or loss of livelihood are sufficient to dissuade most people from even starting. I write as someone who is pursuing such a court action by way of a judicial review of police surveillance – namely the "routine" surveillance which police undertake at political events.

Here is a summary of my case, as laid out on the website I have set up www.judicialreview.org.uk:

The case is in the high court this week – watch this space!

More information about the case including court documents can be found at www.judicialreview.org.uk.

A website has been set up that turns the tables on urban surveillance systems by ‘watching the watchers’ using your mobile phone to map CCTV locations around the UK. The CCTV Treasure Hunt is a game created by a pair of UK artists that can be played as part of an organised event or as an individual. It's simple to play:

1. Use your camera phone (or other available photographic-device), to capture a shot of any CCTV cameras you spot around town - remember to protect your own anonymity…
 
2. Make a note of the CCTV camera's location - the more detail the better! For example: ‘Corner of X and Y Street, Random Town, UK‘ or ‘Street Number, Street Name, Random Town, UK’ is better than just ‘Random Town‘. A postcode is also helpful if known…
 
3. Send your picture plus the details of the camera's location via MMS or Email to: iseecctv@googlemail.com
 
4. Your photo will then be added to the map on the home page, as well as the gallery. You will remain anonymous at all times!

The treasure hunt can also be played with others starting from a central meeting location:

Participants are given an explorers pack which includes a map covering a 3-mile radius around the base location, a small Guide to the game and a mask to protect their anonymity.
 
Participants then have 1 hour to scout the area on the map and find, photograph and mark on the map as many CCTV cameras as possible. The player or team which finds the most cameras wins the game!

The CCTV Treasure Hunt has already been played in Newcastle and most recently last weekend in Nottingham. If you'd like to set up a hunt in your area then visit the Treasure Hunt website where you can get advice on organising a game and ask to be sent copies of the explorers packs.

The Telegraph reports that CCTV has been used at a National Trust Restaurant to film and record private conversations of diners. A woman who, with her family, visited the Manor Restaurant in Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire discovered that their meal had been surveilled in this way after she wrote to complain about poor food and slow service.

But she was left astonished by the restaurant's response. Simon Offen, the catering manager, emailed her to say he disputed her version of events after he had "watched and listened with interest to the video recording of her table".

Increasingly CCTV is appearing around the country with the ability to record sound as well as images. This flies in the face of published guidelines. Last year the Information Commissioner's Office released a revised CCTV code of practice in which the issue of recording conversations was highlighted. The code states:

CCTV must not be used to record conversations between members of the public as this is highly intrusive and unlikely to be justified. You should choose a system without this facility if possible. If your system comes equipped with a sound recording facility then you should turn this off or disable it in some other way.

Yet signs, such as the one below, warning people that sound is being recorded are becoming increasingly common. Action must be taken now to stop this extension of already intrusive surveillance equipment. If you are aware of an establishment that either records sound or states that it records sound then you should contact them and tell them they are breaching the CCTV code of practice. If they do not take steps to remove sound recording or correct their signs then you should visit the Information Commissioner's Office and complete a complaint form. The CCTV code of practice is based on data protection principles laid out in the Data Protection Act.
 
In 2007 the CCTV advisory body CameraWatch stated that 90% of surveillance cameras may be breaching the Data Protection Act. Clearly the code of practice is currently not being enforced. Perhaps if enough complaints were received from privacy conscious members of the public things would change.

During 2008 a number of politicians and high ranking public officials spoke out against the use of surveillance cameras in the UK. The year also saw yet more reports emerge that criticised the effectiveness of CCTV. One such report, entitled 'Why are fear and distrust spiralling in twenty-first century Britain?', was published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in October.

The report explores the issue of why the fear of crime is so much higher than actual crime and argues that the cause of growing fear and distrust is visible physical inequality and segregation, combined with a commercially driven media with a vested interest in promoting fear.

On CCTV the report points out:

“mounting evidence shows that private security and CCTV does not reduce fear of crime or actual crime and might in fact increase crime. According to a study funded by the Scottish Office in Glasgow, there was no improvement in feelings of safety after CCTV was introduced, while the area studied actually showed an increase in crime. The author concluded that the ‘electronic eye on the street’ threatens to erode the ‘natural surveillance’ of ‘mutual policing’ by individuals and represents a retreat from ‘collective and individual responsibility to self interest and a culture of fear.”

The report though also shows that the message that CCTV is ineffective is still not getting through to policy makers - it highlights a disturbing new type of cctv deployment in the UK: "in outlying parts of Liverpool, drones, which are the unmanned spy planes used in Iraq, are used to patrol deprived parts of the city".

Undoubtedly 2009 will see yet more public figures speak out against CCTV and still more reports that question the ethics and effectiveness of blanket surveillance in the UK. The question is will the wider public and the local and national decision makers heed the warnings or continue expanding the surveillance state.

The Daily Mail reports that councils around the country are cutting back on CCTV amidst the economic downturn. The Mail quotes Surveillance expert Professor Nigel Gilbert, "who last year produced a report for the Royal Academy of Engineers calling for a halt to CCTV cameras until their need was proven". Gilbert told the Mail:

The evidence suggests surveillance cameras are completely useless as a way of reducing crime, their only use is as a way of collecting evidence a crime has been committed- it doesn't stop it happening in the first place. The public has been misled into believing that it's a silver bullet for crime reduction and actually it is not. I suspect that councils are realising this and therefore it is not a very high priority to look out for crime on CCTV systems. It is not an efficient or cost-effective use of resources.

The article states that it costs Worcester City Council £140,000 a year to pay staff to monitor the town's 63 surveillance cameras "a burden it can no longer afford".

Also quoted is Dr David Murakami-Wood, from The Surveillance Studies Network who said:

Councils are now having cameras on with no one watching or they are having to cut back staffing levels in the recession.CCTV is expensive - local councils did not really think about these costs when they joined the rush to install cameras funded by central government.Now many are realising that they have been saddled with a massive extra cost that in hard times like these can eat into their limited budgets for providing other forms of public safety.

There is a mountain of evidence showing that CCTV is a waste of public money and yet councils around the country continue to fritter money away on this illiberal technology. Now even more so than ever councils should take great care with public funds. Cutting back on CCTV would be a way to free councils from debt and citizens from unwarranted surveillance.

[The following is a transaltion of an article that appeared in French magazine L'Express 10th September 2008 entitled 'Londres Au royaume de Big Brother'.]

In the British capital surveillance cameras check everything: streets, cars, public transport, shopping malls… The inhabitants want more, even though some parliamentarians and NGO's are worried about their effects on privacy.

Graffiti fills one whole panel of the wall two steps away from Oxford Circus in the heart of London. In four words written in white paint it summarises a British peculiarity: "One nation under CCTV", a cynical reference to the American oath of allegiance to the American flag which proclaims the USA as "one nation under God". Under the fresco, passers by observe a drawing of a security guard with his dog and a small boy with a red hood on top of a ladder, paint roller in hand. The author of this picture, the artist Banksy, painted it under cover of night in April 2008, without being caught by the camera half way up the picture.

To avoid the electronic eye is quite an achievement in the British capital. Everywhere they follow the pedestrian, they spy on the stroller, they watch the driver. Everywhere notices announce the existence of CCTV: in the Tube, on the double decker buses, in the streets, at the stations, in the hospitals, in the housing estates; in front of pubs, night clubs, offices, factories. The police even sport mini-cameras on their helmets! All together Britain has 4.2 million cameras, one for every four inhabitants.

To continue reading this article click here

Further to our previous blog entry, we have tracked down the minutes of the various meetings at which Inspector Paul Morgan of South Hams East expressed his views on CCTV.

On 16th June Morgan addressed an informal meeting of Totnes council about the possible introduction of a CCTV system in the town. The minutes note:

Inspector Morgan stated that in his personal opinion, he does not favour CCTV. It is not a deterrent, but a reactive system of policing. CCTV cameras do not affect the behavior in terms of anti-social behaviour or alcohol abuse, and these types of incidents can be targeted specifically by other means.

On 1st September Inspector Morgan handed out copies of Bruce Schneier's article "CCTV Doesn't Keep Us Safe, Yet the Cameras are Everywhere" to a meeting of the full council. As documented by the minutes:

Inspector Morgan stated that there were alternatives to CCTV and this is good investigative police work, which normally obtains the same results at the end of the day.

What a shame more police are not willing to come out and defend good police work over the civil liberty destroying and costly charade that is CCTV.

It seems that the UK government's view of CCTV with regards to privacy/human rights issues the same as that of the government of Iran.

A debate has been taking place in Iran over the use of surveillance cameras. One national security official, Kazem Jalali, warned that the program may violate privacy rights and that any use of the technology must be within existing privacy guidelines. This week, the Iranian Parliament's National Security Commission has declared that CCTV in Iran will not violate privacy rights.

In a speech to the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) earlier this year Gordon Brown said: "let us not pretend that CCTV is intrinsically the enemy of liberty. Used correctly, with the right and proper safeguards [..] it actually helps give them back their liberty, the liberty to go about their everyday lives with reassurance".

Meanwhile Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said: "The use of advanced and rightful techniques in dealing with offenders should be employed by the (NAJA)[Iran's Law Enforcement Agency] forces". NAJA chief Brigadier General Ismail Ahmadi-Moqaddam is reported to have said that he would use surveillance cameras only to monitor crime and not to spy on citizens.

Last December the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution expressing deep concern at the ongoing systematic violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms of the people of the Islamic Republic of Iran. At the same time, last December, Privacy International categorised the UK as an "endemic surveillance society" in their 2007 International Privacy Ranking.

The UK as a supposed liberal Western democracy with a system of Common Law should be setting an example to other countries not vying with them for the top position in human rights abuses league tables.

A senior police officer in Devon has called for a debate into the use of CCTV in the UK. Inspector Paul Morgan of South Hams East expressed concerns about the way that CCTV is introduced unquestioningly:

We're probably the most monitored country in the world per head of population. As a citizen I think there are questions about whether it is the most appropriate use of funds to reducing crime levels.

A large amount of the UK public believes that CCTV is an effective way of fighting crime and so politicians at both a local and national level promote CCTV schemes to boost their popularity. But the public is not well informed and it should be the job of politicians to make evidence based decisions rather than waste public money on ineffective and illiberal measures like surveillance cameras.

Inspector Morgan recently warned Totnes town councillors:

Systems cost a hell of a lot of money to maintain. In a time of reducing crime, is it something that you want to invest a lot of money in?

We agree that a full debate into CCTV is urgently needed, one that looks at all of the facts and considers whether the £500 million of public money could have been spent far more effectively to strengthen our communities and reduce crime. If we do not then yet more cameras will be installed, including a new generation of cameras with technologies such as facial and behavioral recognition that will further erode the freedoms of law abiding citizens and irretrievably change our society into an Orwellian nightmare.

Sir Ken Macdonald QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions has spoken out about the growing surveillance state during a CPS lecture. The lecture entitled 'Coming out of the Shadows' was Macdonald's last before stepping down as head of the Crown Prosecution Service.

In his speech Macdonald pointed out the dangers inherent in state powers blindly following technological solutions:

Over the last thirty years technology has given each of us, as individual citizens, enormous gifts of access to information and knowledge. Sometimes it seems as if everything in the world is at our fingertips and this doubtless has made our lives immeasurably richer.
 
But technology also gives the State enormous powers of access to knowledge and information about each one of us. And the ability to collect and store it at will. Every second of every day, in everything we do.

He went on to warn of the consequences of letting the surveillance state expand unchecked:

[...] we need to understand that it is in the nature of State power that decisions taken in the next few months and years about how the State may use these powers, and to what extent, are likely to be irreversible. They will be with us forever. And they in turn will be built upon. So we should take very great care to imagine the world we are creating before we build it. We might end up living with something we can't bear.

We at No CCTV have consistently stressed that better community reduces crime, technology does not.

Police around the country are increasingly starting to wear CCTV cameras on their bodies. Police in Banbury recently began trialling the so-called "body cams".

Surveillance cameras erode trust and so reduce a sense of community. Body cams take the erosion of trust to a new level - now the state doesn't even trust police officers. And it seems that the state doesn't want us to trust them either - body cams are yet another piece of paraphernalia that serves to further distance citizens from the human being that is the police officer. Police look more and more like the military.

So who claims body cams do any good? And is the dehumanisation of police officers offset by some huge reduction in crime? PC Froggat of Banbury police spoke to the Banbury Guardian:

Mr Froggat said the cameras had cut back on bad behaviour. "It's been a huge deterrant at close quarters during night patrols," he said.
('Police, Camera, Action', Banbury Guardian print edition, 26 June 2008, emphasis added)

An amazing claim, as this interview was published just 5 days after police began using body cams! Amazing because previous assessment of new policing tools has taken rigorous analysis by independent assessors measuring substantial data collected before and after implementation, and with specially set up control areas. Then again, not so surprising really considering that when rigorous analysis of CCTV technology is conducted by independent assessors measuring substantial data collected before and after implementation and with specially set up control areas, the results always show that CCTV is ineffective and a waste of money...

On Saturday, groups all over Europe will be taking part in events to protest against the growing Surveillance Society. NO2ID has teamed up with the Open Rights Group to show Parliament the 'Big Picture' by constructing a giant image made out of thousands of pictures taken by UK citizens of surveillance state ephemera. You can join this protest from anywhere in the UK by simply sending them a photo of the surveillance state in your life. Images of the signs of mass surveillance, and any form of intrusive ID or state control - cameras, cards, scanners, forms, whatever you like.

Already hundreds of photos of surveillance cameras and other database state ephemera from all over the country have been emailed or uploaded to Flickr but there's still time to send more. Take a photograph with your (digital) camera or mobile phone and send a copy to FreedomNotFear@no2id.net

As reported in the media last month the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) has raised concern about CCTV in schools. ATL has conducted a preliminary survey of teachers throughout the UK and found that 85% of those questioned said CCTV was operating in their schools, often used to monitor the behaviour of the pupils within school hours. 10% of those surveyed said CCTV was operating in the toilets. And over 50% admitted to concerns about the use of CCTV around their schools. There are huge civil liberty issues regarding the use of CCTV in schools - children have no means to express any opposition despite there being very strict rules regarding juvenile privacy. We share the concerns raised by Action on Rights for Children (ARCH) that surveillance cameras in schools act simply to normalise state surveillance - if you grow up surrounded by surveillance you are less likely to question the ever growing police state as an adult.

So what of the perceived trade off of giving away freedoms for this ever elusive security? Does CCTV in schools actually do anything positive? According to a report in Security Management written by John J. Strauchs, Senior Principal of Strauchs LLC:

"Schools are not the largest market by any means, but they are the most troubling. There is a virtual pandemic of schools installing video cameras willy-nilly [...] The lay public, unfortunately, doesn't understand the technology and ignorantly believes that the simple act of installing cameras stops crime. Cash-starved high schools, in particular, may be choosing video surveillance over higher teacher pay, text books, or afterschool programs for students. ... With very few exceptions, it is almost a useless tool to prevent serious crimes in most schools because they rarely, if ever, have the staff to effectively monitor the cameras."

So, teachers are not keen on CCTV in schools. Neither is the CCTV industry. What about the kids? Well according to the BBC kids just love being surveilled. In a bizarre propaganda stunt, BBC's Newsround interviewed a group of school children about surveillance cameras, whilst they were at school, presumably under the gaze of their teachers. Sure enough the kids rolled off a litany of pro-surveillance hyperbole, reminiscent of when Saddam Hussein appeared on television in 1990 to ask British hostages how they were enjoying their stay.

It is deeply inappropriate to put children in this situation and ask them to comment on a topic of which they cannot possibly understand the full ramifications. CCTV in schools is wrong. And no amount of children saying they like being filmed will make it right. We need to ask serious questions about what our society has become that we need to film children at school as though they were criminals.

Last week Norfolk police used CCTV to alert the East Anglian public to three wiley bag snatchers - oh no sorry, just three normal people, that is three innocent people. It seems that their trusted friend, Mr CCTV camera, had the wrong date and time attached to the images it was recording, resulting in the police giving pictures of wholly innocent people walking through a car park to the local press. Quite ironic really, considering that car parks are just about the only places where CCTV has been found in the past to have any crimefighting value.

NO CCTV were recently interviewed for an article about CCTV in the UK for French magazine L'Express. The article can now be read online (in french) on the L'Express website. We will post in a translation of the article in due course.

UPDATE: The transaltion can be read at http://www.no-cctv.org.uk/blog/lexpress_article_-_london-_in_the_kingdom_of_big_brother.htm

NO-CCTV finds the CCTV plot

Earlier this year senior Police admitted to the House of Lords Constitution Committee that CCTV is not effective at deterring crime. Instead they claimed that: "The principal measure of effectiveness as far as the Police Service is concerned is in relation to the support of the investigative proces". The only problem they said was that there is little research with regard to CCTV as an investigative tool. Of course there is a mountain of evidence that shows what they had to admit, namely that CCTV doew not reduce crime.

The Police are effectively saying "Okay we said it would reduce crime, but the figures show it doesn't, so instead we are now saying it helps in solving crime - and as there are no figures on that you'll have to trust us, after all we're the police. We need more CCTV, lots more."

Except there are figures. Last year the London Assembly obtained figures for number of cameras vs crime clear up rates accross the 32 London Boroughs. These figures show that increasing the number of cameras does not increase the crime clear up rate. Basically, there is NO linear dependence between the number of cameras and percentage of crime clear-up in London, where there are over 10,000 state run cameras.

No CCTV has produced a graph showing the non-relationship between cameras and crime clear up rate. See here.

Today's edition of You and Yours on BBC Radio 4 featured an item on CCTV and compliance with the Information Commissioners code of practise. On the programme was a representative of CameraWatch - a CCTV users' group that: "Support the CCTV industry to ensure systems are operated in accordance with data protection and other legal requirements".

CameraWatch say that nine out of ten CCTV systems may not comply with the code and therefore the Data Protection Act. Whilst it is important that cameras are operated according to guidelines, there are wider issues that the programme did not touch upon, such as privacy, civil liberties and the worrying trend towards "upgrades" that further reduce the freedoms of law abiding citizens. In fact CameraWatch explicitly supported the industry, Police and Home Office line as laid out in the National CCTV Strategy. Their representative told the programme that the poor quality of images of current camera systems means that efforts should be made to install new cameras with high quality images - thus keeping public confidence in CCTV and increasing compliance with the code of practise!

The public has been told that CCTV is an effective tool in the fight against crime when it is not. Now the industry says CCTV does not work and they have the answer - upgrade the systems! Where is the public debate about the implications of installing high resolution, networked surveillance cameras with facial recognition, behaviour recognition and other technologies as are currently being trialed in China?.

The Blackpool Citizen reports that the future of Blackpool's CCTV is under scrutiny. The newspaper says:

A working group has been formed to review public realm CCTV in Blackpool with the aim of reviewing its purpose and effectiveness and determine whether it achieves its aims.

The topics that will be covered in the scrutiny process are: "whether it meets your needs as a resident, if it makes you feel safe, if it deters crime and if it can be improved across the town". Note that issues such as privacy and removing the cameras to allow law abiding citizens to go about their daily business without being spied upon do not feature. Also shouldn't the council know if the cameras deter crime or not?

Of course the reality is that CCTV cameras do not deter crime - all of the evidence points to their ineffectiveness. It is likely this so called consultation is being used to justify CCTV "upgrades" in Blackpool that will simply further reduce the civil liberties of local residents.

Blackpool Council is asking residents to send their thoughts on CCTV to Georgina Atkinson. Submissions should be made by Friday 22nd August 2008, more details at http://www.blackpool.gov.uk/news/cctvscrutiny.htm

We urge Blackpool residents to read the substantial evidence against surveillance cameras, and to tell the council what they can do with their CCTV.

In a recent Crypto-Gram newsletter, Bruce Schneier includes his Guardian article about the ineffectiveness of CCTV (featured in a previous entry), together with some interesting CCTV links. The links include CCTV research, information on London's cameras and privacy concerns.

This week the Guardian published a response to Bruce Schneier's criticism of CCTV cameras. The response claims that CCTV "has a vital role in the fight against crime". And who is it putting forward this view? None other than the managing director of Atec Security - suppliers of ... yes you guessed it, CCTV technology!

On their website Atec acknowledges the growing sceptisim about the effectiveness of CCTV in the UK, including the recent statistic of only three per cent of London's street robberies being solved using CCTV images - but their solution like everyone else in the surveillance game is more technology and more oppressive cameras. The police and CCTV industry have been admitting the ineffectiveness of CCTV since the release of the National CCTV Strategy last October - but the reason they have done this is to call for the expansion and upgrading of surveillance cameras in the UK, to a level that is no longer adequately described by the phrase "closed-circuit television cameras". Cameras do not do what they have been telling us they do for the last decade - they do NOT reduce crime. Despite this, the solution put forward by the state and the CCTV industry is not to scale back the cameras and save public money.

In the Guardian Atec says:

"If standards are better regulated and combined with the rapidly accelerating development of CCTV technology - such as advanced facial recognition and analytics - CCTV will become more widely acknowledged as a vital part of the criminal justice system".

A surveillance "arms race" is set to break out in the UK and companies like Atec stand to make a lot of money, whilst the citizens of the UK will simply continue to loose yet more freedoms to the ever growing surveillance state.

Security expert Bruce Schneier has issued a warning about CCTV in the Guardian this week. As a crime fighting tool Schneier points out that surveillance cameras are not very effective: "This fact has been demonstrated again and again: by a comprehensive study for the Home Office in 2005, by several studies in the US, and again with new data announced last month by New Scotland Yard. They actually solve very few crimes, and their deterrent effect is minimal."

Schneier concludes that cameras are not worth the £500 million or so of public money that has been invested but also issues a stark warning about where surveillance cameras are headed:

We live in a unique time in our society: the cameras are everywhere, and we can still see them. Ten years ago, cameras were much rarer than they are today. And in 10 years, they'll be so small you won't even notice them. Already, companies like L-1 Security Solutions are developing police-state CCTV surveillance technologies like facial recognition for China, technology that will find their way into countries like the UK. The time to address appropriate limits on this technology is before the cameras fade from notice.

Last week the Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave a speech to the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) about 'Security and Liberty'.

Brown hailed technology as the saviour of society, and said we must listen to those who say "that for too long we have used nineteenth century means to solve twenty first century problems". Of course surveillance cameras were part of his gushing praise for modernity: "CCTV cuts crime, and makes people feel safer - in some cases, it actually helps give them back their liberty, the liberty to go about their everyday lives with reassurance". What an incredible piece of doublespeak - how can liberty be increased by decreasing it?

And how did Brown come to the conclusion that CCTV cuts crime? Well he told his IPPR fan club that in Newcastle "after CCTV was installed, burglaries fell by 56 per cent, criminal damage by 34 per cent, and theft by 11 per cent". All seems done and dusted then doesn't it.

Except that he forgot to mention a few minor details. Like the fact that in a detailed report on CCTV in the UK - 'Effects of Closed-Circuit Television on Crime' (Welsh and Farrington, 2003) the effect of CCTV on crime in Newcastle was described as "undesirable". The headline figures that Brown used to prove CCTV's worth need to be looked at alongside underlying trends in crime and figures from areas in Newcastle without CCTV. In Newcastle, total crime fell by 21.6% in the area with cameras but by 29.7% in the area where there were no cameras! The fall in burglary that Brown uses is a fall from 17 a month to 9 in the area with CCTV compared to a fall from 75 a month to 46 where no cameras were installed.

So Brown's CCTV defence doesn't stand up at all. Neither does his unquestioning love of technology. Better community reduces crime, tecnology does not.

The BBC reports that the shadow home secretary David Davis MP has resigned over the "slow strangulation of fundamental British freedoms by this government" in light of the controversial vote to extend pre-charge detention to 42 days. In his resignation statement, Mr Davis said:

But in truth, 42 days is just one if perhaps the most salient example of the insidious surreptitious and relentless erosion of fundamental British freedoms. We will have shortly the most intrusive identity card system in the world, a CCTV camera for every 14 citizens, a DNA database bigger than any dictatorship has with thousands of innocent children and a million innocent citizens on it. We've witnessed an assault on jury trials, that bulwark against bad law and its arbitrary abuse by the state; shortcuts with our justice system that make our justice system neither firm nor fair; and a creation of a database state, opening up our private lives to the prying eyes of official snoopers and exposing our personal data to careless civil servants and criminal hackers.

The freedoms we enjoy were fought for by our political ancestors. Our current politicians, it seems, are happy to squander them. We salute David Davis - such a stand is long overdue.

Watch David Davis' resignation speech at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7450728.stm

Naomi Klein reports in Rolling Stone Magazine on the growing number of surveillance cameras in China. American companies such as IBM, Honeywell and General Electric are trying out the latest technology in a country where there are less human rights and civil liberties issues to deal with.

Many of the technology trends that we warned of in our Report are being installed in China, such as a network of surveillance cameras - both public and private cameras - patched into the police system. The UK government has expressed its desire for such a system in their National CCTV Strategy, and the recent acknowledgement by the police that CCTV is not an effective crime fighting tool is being used to push forward a new upgraded network of surveillance cameras.

The hi-tech surveillance agenda in China is part of a program called "Golden Shield", Naomi Klein writes:

This is how this Golden Shield will work: Chinese citizens will be watched around the clock through networked CCTV cameras and remote monitoring of computers. They will be listened to on their phone calls, monitored by digital voice-recognition technologies. Their Internet access will be aggressively limited through the country's notorious system of online controls known as the "Great Firewall." Their movements will be tracked through national ID cards with scannable computer chips and photos that are instantly uploaded to police databases and linked to their holder's personal data. This is the most important element of all: linking all these tools together in a massive, searchable database of names, photos, residency information, work history and biometric data. When Golden Shield is finished, there will be a photo in those databases for every person in China: 1.3 billion faces.

Here in the UK it is time for us to stand up and say enough is enough, we must not allow the government to roll out a Golden Shield type program here.

You can also hear Naomi Klein talk about Golden Shield on the Guardian podcast at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/audio/2008/jun/03/dennis.klein

The Home Affairs committee today published it’s ‘A Surveillance Society?’ report. Campaign group No CCTV calls on decision makers to halt the proliferation of surveillance cameras in the UK in light of the overwhelming evidence that they do not work and are an unnecessary intrusion into the lives of law abiding citizens.

The report points out that: “Loss of privacy through excessive surveillance erodes trust between the individual and the Government and can change the nature of the relationship between citizen and state.”[Summary p5]

The committee recommends that: “The Home Office should ensure that any extension of the use of camera surveillance is justified by evidence of its effectiveness for its intended purpose, and that its function and operation are understood by the public.” [Ground rules for Government p7]. However the report repeatedly references the lack of evidence of the effectiveness of CCTV:

• The Minister of State for Security, Counter-terrorism, Crime and Policing, Rt Hon Tony McNulty MP shared this view. He acknowledged a paucity of evidence on the effectiveness of camera surveillance in the prevention of crime but was convinced of its value:
  • Can I point to a definitive national study that quantifies in any way its success as a deterrent? No, I cannot [...]
  • [Report, paragraph 208]

The report recommends that:

• Under camera surveillance in public spaces, individuals have very little control over whether or not their images and movements are captured and over how they are stored and used. This lack of choice intensifies the obligation on camera operators and regulators to behave responsibly and to deploy surveillance technology only where it is of proven benefit in the fight against crime and where this benefit outweighs any detrimental effect on individual liberty.
• [Report, paragraph 221]

Since the inquiry showed that there is no proven benefit in the fight against crime we believe that local authorities and the police should cease the expansion of CCTV in the UK and begin to remove the existing cameras. This would return some much needed trust into our society, reduce public expenditure and claw back some civil liberties for citizens of the UK.

We contend that better community reduces crime, technology does not.

Read our full press release at http://www.no-cctv.org.uk/press/press_release_3.pdf

The Inquirer reports that:

Under the authorisation signed last July 4 by Jacqui Smith, video feeds and still images captured from roadside TV cameras, along with personal data derived from them, can be transmitted out of the UK to countries such as the US, that are outside the European Economic Area.

No CCTV has consistently warned that local decisions can have huge implications for the civil liberties of UK citizens. This latest revelation is a stark reminder of the repsonsibility that local politicians and decision makers have.

The Daily Mail reports that police are demanding access to Britain’s local council CCTV cameras “so they can analyse physical movements that could help identify criminals”. This is all part of the Home Office’s National CCTV Strategy, which includes proposals to create a network of UK surveillance cameras so that the entire country can be accessed by police/security services from a central hub.

This is a nightmare vision - Bentham’s Panopticon - HM Prison UK.

As reported in the Telegraph cctv is now being used in many schools to monitor both teachers and pupils. Where is the research that shows the effects of such surveillance? Where is the public debate? What are our children growing up to perceive as normal?

It is obvious that cctv in classrooms has nothing to do with protecting children or teachers but everything to do with the national obsession to surveille.

The Telegraph reports that a council in Devon have opted not to install CCTV. The district council quite rightly decided that to do so would infringe law abiding citizens’ human rights. They should also have worked out that it does not reduce crime and is a huge waste of money, but hey - it’s a start.

The Times reports that local council spending on CCTV and other surveillance technologies is set to push up council tax bills in the UK. The Local Government Minister, John Healey warned that authorities risk being capped if they propose increases of 5% or more. Surely local authorities should be made to justify the public money they spend - the evidence shows that cctv is not an effective tool in the fight against crime.