As you go about your business in the shop or the bank, you are being watched - and more cameras are on the way. So do you feel safe, asks John Collins
This week, the Minister for Justice, Brian Lenihan, announced the availability of €2.75 million for the rollout of community CCTV schemes in 12 locations. Community groups around the country, faced with rising levels of crime and anti-social behaviour believe that monitoring of public spaces can deter such activity and improve quality of life for everyone in the community.
But should we be concerned that video surveillance of our ostensibly private activities is becoming the accepted norm? At present, Garda CCTV systems operate in eight cities and towns, with 18 more systems planned. The community-based CCTV scheme introduced by the previous minister, Michael McDowell, who felt that the Garda was not rolling out its own schemes fast enough, is operational or close to in four areas. Grants were also awarded this week to groups in Ballymun, west Dublin, Drogheda, Dundalk, Ennis, Kilkenny, Limerick city and suburbs, Longford town, Thurles, Tralee, Mullaghmatt in Co Monaghan and Manorhamilton, Co Leitrim.
Add in the thousands of unregulated, privately-operated cameras that record our daily activities in shops, pubs and workplaces, and we are on track to catch up with Britain, which is now the country with the most surveillance of public spaces on the planet.
Britain has embraced the use of CCTV as a crime prevention strategy since it first began to be deployed in the early 1990s. There are an estimated 4.2 million CCTV cameras dotted across its landscape and their use has not been without problems.
In January 2006, two Merseyside council workers were jailed for misuse of a CCTV system after using a street camera to look into a woman's apartment. Images of the woman in a variety of intimate and private situations, including her naked, were displayed on a large screen in the council's CCTV control room.
TJ MCINTYRE OF Digital Rights Ireland (DRI) believes that if a similar case took place in Ireland, the perpetrators would be able to escape without prosecution.
The Irish Law Reform Commission warned about the abuse of CCTV as far back as 1996 and again in 1998. Despite this, the whole area is still very lightly regulated.
The Department of Justice has a code of practice for the community and Garda CCTV systems which has "a limited statutory basis", according to McIntyre, through references in section 38 of the 2005 Garda Siochána Act. If a community CCTV scheme is flouting the code of practice, its authorisation to operate the system can be revoked, but little can be done to punish the camera operator.
As a result, DRI has called for the Minister to put the current code of practice on a full statutory basis, backed up by civil and criminal sanctions for those who fail to adhere to it.
The recording of members of the public using cameras is controlled by the Data Protection Acts, which say their use has to be transparent and proportionate. Pubs, cafes and other premises open to the public are required to display a sign stating that CCTV is in use and to provide a contact number for the premises owner or the security firm operating the system. In reality, it is not hard to find premises that use cameras but do not display such information.
A Cork pub was rapped on the knuckles this week when it was discovered that it had installed a camera in its toilets. As a result the Data Protection Commissioner published guidance on its website which said that cameras cannot be used in public toilets unless there is evidence of frequent security problems. "Needless to say, the CCTV cameras should never be focused into the private spaces of toilets such as cubicles or the urinal areas," the guidance advised.
Private users of CCTV also have to be aware that while its use for security does not have to be explicitly spelt out, staff and members of the public need to be informed before recording starts if it is being used for other purposes such as staff conduct or health and safety reasons.
A 2005 STUDY of 14 CCTV schemes carried out by the University of Leicester for the British Home Office found that cameras are not having the expected impact on crime - just one area studied saw a drop in the number of incidents which could be attributed to CCTV. It found that cameras were effective only in reducing vehicle crime in car parks and had little impact on how safe people felt in the community.
The study found that the hours of operation of monitoring centres also have a significant impact on effectiveness. The vast majority of applications for the community schemes here propose monitoring only during "hot-spot" times rather than 24/7.
The scheme is potentially open to any community group, but they need the support of the relevant local authority and the Garda. The scheme is administered by Pobal, formerly Area Development Management Ltd, a not-for-profit company which promotes a range of social and economic development projects. Before Pobal gives the green light for any scheme, a confidential Garda report is provided to show that there is a need for cameras in the area.
To date, local authorities and chambers of commerce have tended to lead the applications and provide funding for their operation - the Government grants cover only the set-up costs. Monitoring of the cameras is carried out either by the Garda or private security firms.
In Britain, CCTV is being seen less as a crime reduction tool. Instead it has been far more effective in gathering intelligence and providing evidence in court. In fact, by increasing the number of guilty pleas, the use of video footage has saved the criminal justice system huge sums. Video evidence was central in tracking down the July 2005 London bombers and is now a routine part of the evidence discovery process for common crimes such as assault and robbery.
Although there is a dearth of research on the matter in Ireland, the public perception is that a little loss of privacy is acceptable given the role that CCTV has had in convicting criminals, most recently Joe O'Reilly. But an interesting element of that case was that much of the CCTV evidence was ruled inadmissible because it was of such poor quality.
The Programme for Government contains a commitment to further investment in community CCTV, something that concerns DRI. "Installing a CCTV system in one city centre is a small development, but looked at in a broader context it's worrying," says TJ McIntyre. "It's Government policy to introduce mobile phone registration so that our movements can be tracked and it's also policy to monitor every e-mail that's sent as well as when we log on and off the internet."