CCTV and Privacy: Joining the Camera Club

Terrorism, privacy and CCTV

By Lew McCreary

November 08, 2002 — CSO — In our weird new world, security is a value whose stock surges upward with each and every demonstration of unsettling jeopardy. We are living now with a host of terrors, some of them local, others more remote. New terror joins still-fresh memories, stirring a growing stew of anxieties. As I write this, in the second week of October, our prospective war against Iraq shares center stage with a lethal sniper (I hope that by the time you read this he's been caught). This energetic lunatic is cruelly taking out citizens innocently going about their business—mowing lawns, waiting for buses, buying gas, walking into school. It is an easy week in which to feel unsafe.

When the preciousness of one cherished value rises, that of others may seem to pale by comparison. Last year, The New York Times Magazine published an article ("A Watchful State," by Jeffrey Rosen) that detailed the growing use of video surveillance in England. Rosen, who called the Brits' widespread use of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras "a glimpse of the American future," noted that the motive for its origins lay in "fear of terrorism." Years after its initial deployment in 1994, however, Rosen found that, although the fear of terrorism remained undiminished, the CCTV system had won high popular acceptance, despite a wide gap between its advertised capabilities and the operational reality. On some level, the majority of citizens found the pervasive surveillance comforting. Now, on any given day, the average subject of the crown is seen by at least 300 cameras. Throughout the land more than 2.5 million CCTV cameras are now in use.

It is tempting to imagine that the chances of catching this week's psychopath quicklyin days or weeks rather than months or nevercould turn on our having a U.K.-style installed base of surveillance cameras. If neighborhoods and public places were wired up for round-the-clock video coverage, could there be some detectable evidence of the sniper's movements before, after and perhaps even during the shootings? (In fact, police are now reviewing images from a red-light scofflaw camera at an intersection near the school shooting scene to see whether a fleeing vehicle may have run the light just after the attack occurred. My guess is they'll learn that this apparently organized killer will have scrupulously observed the speed limit and stopped at every light.)

In the nearly eight years since its initial deployment, the British CCTV system has caught not a single terrorist, making the ROI on its founding mission paltry indeed. Chiefly, it has convinced the English that their public behavior is constantly on view. Rosen posits that this may be exactly the intended effect of the systemto create a feeling of being observed and an acquiescent conformity. But notwithstanding its many enthusiasts, criminologists say CCTV can't be linked to a discernible drop in the crime rate. So, exactly what defensible social purpose is being served?

Rosen ends his piece on a faintly optimistic note. America, he says, is not England, where a greater deference is given to authority and a higher premium placed on conformism. Still, the awesome anxieties of the present moment will tempt many Americans to conclude that security should trump all other values. CSOs, as members of the best-informed community on many of these matters, should work to see that any process leading to that conclusion is appropriately thoughtful and rigorous, not heedless and hasty.

-Lew McCreary

mccreary@cxo.com

Read more about data privacy in CSOonline's Data Privacy section.

Other stories by Lew McCreary

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• 4 CCTV Lessons from the U.K.
• Jeffrey Rosen and the Naked Crowd: Liberty and Surveillance for All
• Video Surveillance and Data Monitoring: The Basics