Correspondence... Correspondence... Richard [AWA], Bradford (26/4/97)
Did you see the news last night? They were reporting that there's now a trend in stealing CCTV camera's in the area! They're worth 500 pounds each. In Wakefield there has been 5 stolen, plus more in Leeds/Bradford.
Quite ironic really!!!
J.C. [ACLU] (25/4/97)
Thank you for all the wonderful information in your site.
I am working to prevent the introduction of CCTV in Oakland, California and the material has been quite helpful. Our local City Council is voting on it on April 29th. Any last minute advice? Any new info. that's not yet on your site?
...(2/5/97)
Thank you for the reply and the suggestions. We convinced the Oakland City Council to put off their decision for at least 60 days so they can consider the various concerns we've raised. (I work for the American Civil Liberties Union.) We generated a fair amount of press coverage, a lot of concern about "big brother", etc. There is considerable skepticism -- but there is also a lot of crime hysteria. We're hoping to stop this proposal in Oakland and prevent the security industry from establishing a "beachhead" for this technology in California.
Do you have any more details on theft of CCTV in your part of the world? Please keep me informed about anti-CCTV campaigns that may be underway or about to begin. The folks trying to profit from this technology point to how successful it's supposedly been in the UK. They showed video from their trips to the UK and basically learned everything they know from UK security companies. Any information on anti-CCTV activities there would be very helpful to us.
A few questions that came up from the hearing (if you have time or ability to provide any answers) ....
1. Supporters claim very few abuses of this technology in the UK. Do you have ANY examples of cameras peering into people's windows, zooming in on people's body parts, targeting political activists, etc.?
2. Photo Scan, Ltd. of the UK is being portrayed as the technological leader in this area. They apparently are coming to the US later this year on a speaking tour trying to drum up a market for this product. Do you have any useful info. on this company?
3. Supporters claim they've addressed "big brother" claims by having the cameras controlled by non-law enforcement entities and handing over the video to the police only if a crime occurs. Is this true? (I'm not sure how it solves anything....) What about their claim that so-called "community monitors" are being stationed in the video control rooms to deter possible abuses?
4. They point to the town of Sittingbourne as a particularly successful and evolved CCTV model? Do you know anything about Sittingbourne's use of CCTV? Know of any opposition in Sittingbourne? According to my old Encyclopedia Britanica, Sittingbourne is a fairly small town (compared to Oakland) made up primarily of one, very long street. This is nothing like Oakland and would seem to be much easier to surveil than a spread out, enthnically diverse arealike Oakland.
5. They point to a supposed study in the UK of civil liberties implications by Katie Summers (Sommers?). Know anything about this or her?
6. They claim they can limit the privacy concerns by programming the cameras to have only limited fields or ranges of views. I take this to mean they could prevent a technician from pointing a camera in windows or in certain directions. Apart from this not really addressing most of our concerns, wouldn't this make the cameras vulnerable to "sneak attacks" from behind by vandals or theives (or civil libertarians)? Has they done this in the UK? Has it been discussed?
7. I read somewhere that John Major had campaigned, in part, in favor of spending more money on CCTV. (I don't suppose we can attribute his defeat to this, can we?) Did Labour take a different position? They're not anti-CCTV, are they?
If any of you or your collegues and supporters are interested in letting the Oakland City Council know how people who actually have lived under this technology feel about it, you can e-mail them -- Public Safety Committee
Oakland City Council
c/o Council Member John Russo
Thanks again for any help you can offer. If you have newsclips or other materials, please feel free to mail them to me. I'll send you news on our Oakland campain (if you like), if you provide a mailing address.
John Crew
ACLU of Northern California
1663 Mission St., #460
San Francisco, California, USA, 94103. e-mail: Sx2JE@aol.com
J.C. [ACLU] (16/7/97)
We too had some success yesterday in Oakland. The Council Committee voted, per our request, to reject their police department's report on CCTV as too inadequate.
Oakland City Attorney (called "barristers" or "solicitors" there?) said if cameras did not have zoom or other high-tech capabilities they would not violate legal privacy rights. However, by implication, if the cameras were able to do what they apparently can do in the UK, she would consider them to be a violation of constitutional privacy protections. She also recommended that, if cameras were used, local laws be passed to define what would be permissible and impermissible. (Can you send me a sample of the voluntary "code of conduct" I've read about in the UK? I understand they are pretty weak but they might still be helpful.) She also said the tapes would public record and accessible to all -- media included. That may help us in scaring off business support for CCTV. I've argued that if every petty crime is captured on publicly-accessible video, the television news will broadcast and play up Oakland crime just because of the availability of dramatic tape. That will make Oakland seem much more dangerous than it is and scare away shoppers, tourists, etc.
The whole issue goes back for further study with yet another report back due on September 16th.
J.C. [ACLU] (10/9/97)
Good news. It appears that we have finally killed the CCTV proposal in Oakland.
Police have withdrawn their support for CCTV. A new Police Department report concludes --
"It is our opinion, however, that concerns about governmental intrusions and abridgment of civil liberties from residents and merchants of this City will likely negate the advantages and potential of this method of crime
prevention. Accordingly, we recommend that the City not proceed with implementation of a video surveillance system."
The report also says, "We believe there is no conclusive way to establish that the presence of video surveillance cameras resulted in the prevention or reduction of crime."
The Oakland City Attorney stated that, while cameras that merely recorded what the human eye could see in public places would be legal, the high-tech CCTV system proposed here (modelled on the ones there) would unlawfully violate constitutional privacy rights --
"The courts do limit the surveillance. For example, the method of surveillance may be no greater than that which can be achieved by the naked eye.... Consequently, one may have a reasonable expectation of privacy from observation from a video camera equipped with zoom or magnifying capabilities.... Also, the cameras should not follow a person from a public place into a place where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy."
("Reasonable expectation of privacy" is the legal standard used in California.)
I suspect that once the police learned they couldn't get away with high-tech cameras, they had little interest in the low-tech versions. In any event, our victory won't become official until the City Council approves (we hope) these reports on September 16th. Then, we will do our best to spread the word to other US cities facing this technology.
We could not have done this without your help. Thank you again. Please pass on our thanks to Mr. Davies as well for all his work.
John Crew
ACLU of Northern California [ Crewaclu@aol.com ]
JC (ALU) (10/2/98)
Just thought I'd let you know of some further anti-CCTV progress over here.
In New York City, there was a nice protest rally the other day against new video cameras in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. (See story of February 4th in ACLU's News Wire -- http://www.aclu.org ) Yesterday, the New York Times published an editorial raising concerns about video surveillance. It's not quite as strong as I'd like but I'll take anything. I recently taped a long segment on our Oakland victory for a nationally televised news magazine show, CBS-TV's "48 Hours." CBS is one of three major national networks so if it airs (not sure when) it'll be nice to get some national attention focused on a major city saying "no" to video surveillance. Again, the materials and leads you provided me last year continue to pay off over here.
Anything new on this topic over there?
John Crew
ACLU of Northern California California [ Crewaclu@aol.com ]
UK Public CCTV Surveillance Regulation Campaign website
Fri, 3 Apr 1998
This may be of interest to visitors to the KDIS website:
"Watching Them, Watching Us" the UK Public CCTV Surveillance Regulation Campaign website which resides at:
Produced with help from the technical experts who produced the "Michael Portillo's Home Page" when a webcamera was pointed out of an office window which happened to look out on the private residence of the the then Minister of Defence...
This site is trying to raise the level of debate on Public CCTV Surveillance, especially given the powerful computer technologies now beyond the prototype stage such as neural network face recognition, motion/target tracking, car number plate recognition etc.
The UK seems to have no coherent regulations which make any of the 550 or so publically funded schemes subject to scrutiny or review, which is a shame since at least £45 million pounds of public money has gone into subsidies.
With the blurring of private intranets and the public internet, many of the same issues of privacy, data protection, copyright and censorship apply.
regards
Mark Dziecielewski
CCTV Report -- British Columbia, Canada
(6/4/98)
For information on a new video surveillance report and proposed privacy guidelines from the Office of the Information & Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia, Canada, see -- "
http://www.oipcbc.org " The press release can be found in the "publications/press release" section of the site and the report itself can be found in the "what's new" section. It's Investigation Report P98-012John Crew (ACLU of Northern California)
Hi folks,
After a gestation of more than five years, Privacy International is now planning to host the 1st Annual Big Brother Awards, which will recognise those people and organisations in Britain that have done the most to erode personal privacy.
The target date at this point is Monday 26 October, at around 7PM, in London We hope to follow the design of the highly successful Freedom of Information awards organised each year by Maurice Frankel.
This will also be an opportunity to recognise those who have worked so hard to defend privacy. We hope it might also be a model for the creation of annual award events in other countries.
I would appreciate your suggestions for award categories. We will call for specific nominations in June. Also, could you let me know if there are any other events on 26 October that will conflict with this one.
In the meantime, please put this date in your diary. It should be a night of fun and drama !
Best wishes
Simon Davies (7/5/98)
Date sent: Wed, 26 Aug 1998 15:24:52 +0100
From: sales@bull-electrical.com
Subject: colour cctv cameras for 99 pounds
As someone involved in security you may be interested in our fully cased colour cctv cameras from just 99 uk pounds composite output, 12vdc supply, world wide shipping.
Pictures and secure credit card online ordering at
http://www.bullnet.co.uk/shops/test/cctv.htm
We also have mono cameras housed in PIR modules at 44 uk pounds on the same page
regards
bull electrical
Folks,
I'm delighted to tell you that we have finalised the details of the Big Brother awards presentation on October 26th.
The event will be held between 6.30 pm and 8 pm in the Senior Common Room of the London School of Economics. The Senior Common Room is located on the 5th floor of the Old (Main) Building of the LSE in Houghton Street, off Aldwych. Take the lifts to the 5th floor and proceed through the dining room, where there will be a buffet and drinks.
Channel 4's resident satirist Mark Thomas has kindly agreed to be the Master of Ceremonies for the night.
The URL for the guidelines and nominations pages is at
http://www.privacy.org/pi/bigbrother/
We urge you to vote now for your favourite privacy invader !
I am attaching an invitation. If you would like a real paper and pulp one with your name inscribed, let me know your snail mail address
Looking forward to seeing you on the night.
Best wishes
********************************************************************
Simon Davies, Director, Privacy International, London UK
email simon@privacy.org
Dear friends and colleagues,
First of all, many many thanks for helping to make last week's Big Brother Awards such a wonderful, fun and successful event. I've had tremendous feedback from all over the place, so I thought you may like an update and summary.
Something like 250 people came along to the ceremony at the LSE. It was an exttraordinary bunch, ranging from hardcore activists to Nobel Laureats. The wine wasn't bad either. Mark Thomas from Channel 4 gave an excellent performance as MC, as did the band and DJ.
The audiovisual back-up, which included footage of uniformed police dragging a PI member out of the DTI building after trying to present an award, went off (almost) without a hitch.
The Winston recipients - Esther Bull, SchNews, Alan Lodge, Harry Cohen MP and Lindis Percy - accepted their awards with style and substance - more than can be said for the "boot on the head" winners.
Considering this was the first such award ceremony, media presence was strong. Numerous camera and TV crews were present including BBC 2, France National Television, Sky News and Undercurrents. The event featured heavily on BBC World Service, and we appeared on numerous programmes such as The World Tonight. We also got small pieces in Businessweek, The Daily Telegraph, The Express, The Mail on Sunday, The Guardian etc. Unfortunately, the following day's papers let us down - on this occasion.
Media interest overseas was also strong, with coverage in Poland, Germany, Austria, the US, Canada, South Africa, France, Netherlands and Denmark. This has helped catalyse a move in some of these countries to replicate our event. I feel certain we will have Big Brother Awards in at least half a dozen countries within a year.
And I'm delighted to be able to tell you that the first such event will be held in Washington DC on April 6, 1999. It will be a parallel event at the Computers, Freedom & Privacy (CFP) conference.
The awards have, in my view, achieved two very important outcomes. First, they have brought an unprecedented number of people together in the name of privacy, and this has proved an invaluable networking experience. The second important outcome is that we appear to have created a cultural shorthand for the things we have been striving for over the years. I've suspected for some time that we need a symbol for privacy invasion.
There's no doubt that this event will be eagerly awaited each year, and I'd like to propose Monday October 18 1999 for our next Big Brother Awards. Malcolm Hutty has kindly set up a list for this, and I'll send details about this shortly.
Did we learn any hard lessons from this event ? A few, but I think we got the formula just about right. We could have done with a cleaner A/V set-up and a higher stage, and perhaps better media prompting, but all in all we all did magnificently.
Again, many thanks to everyone who helped (I counted more than fifty people), and especially to Killing Secrets for its generous sponsorship.
Best wishes
Simon Davies
Visiting Fellow
Computer Security Research Centre
The London School of Economics
Back to Main Feature
Return to Home Page