The Spectre of Surveillance Cameras

Yonge Street near Gould (Dec 2005)

Canada is again faced with the prospect of closed-circuit television cameras on public streets. This, after the boxing day shootings on Yonge Street in Toronto that killed a girl and injured a half-dozen other bystanders. Although I am not unfamiliar with the violent past of that stretch of Yonge (periodically a shooting death occurs there), it surprises me even more as I shopped along there just a couple of weeks ago!!! (See attached panoramic of the very same site).

The public policy rationale is clear. Just days after the subway bombings in London in July 2005, photographs of the perpetrators were plastered all over the news. The bad guys were found, all was well and the State was in control. There is indeed a public benefit because as a forensic tool, CCTV is extremely powerful in deconstructing an event. Relying upon human memory (conflicting info: blue jacket/black jacket, height and build, etc.) is simply not as effective.

But what is the price? The average Londoner is captured on CCTV some 300 times a day. The average Canadian...probably much less -- but the number is not zero. Chances are, everytime a Canadian uses an ATM, visits the local 7/11, or dines at a favourite restaurant - individuals are stored on tape/DVD somewhere! If Canadians walk around major intersections, chances are a traffic camera is filming.

So what is the hangup? 2002 was the last time that Canadians dealt with this issue. This was when Toronto City Council was trying to look at installing cameras in the (very same) Yonge/Dundas area. At the same time on the west coast, an ill-fated experiment was conducted in Kelowna by the RCMP. Both were flawed in their arguments related to public safety. In Toronto, this was portrayed as spending some $600,000 to have officers sit and watch live CCTV cameras - both a high expense and analogous to watching paint dry. Resource-wise this was an inefficient proposal relative to dealing with shortfalls in regular police duties. In Kelowna, Canada's Privacy Commissioner poo-poo'ed on CCTV's as an invasion of privacy; moreover the RCMP was unable to cough up any evidence that CCTV's reduced street crime.

Both are examples of the ill positioning and lack of understanding of CCTV cameras and their most useful purpose. CCTV actually does not reduce crime - but rather augments investigative capabilities. Furthermore, police forces that try to set up CCTV but dismiss outright privacy concerns tend to conjure up Orwellian visions of "big brother"watching us.

Can there be systems set up that provide sufficient protections for privacy, while providing police forces with greater tools to combat crime? I'm optimistic that models set up in London with strict controls on use/checks and balances on abuse have a place in Canada...but that a lot of work is needed to foster strong understanding of what these technologies really mean.