In the past decade, the use of Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) for surveillance and crime control has grown to unprecedented levels. In Britain between 150 and 300 million pounds (225 - 450 million dollars) per year is now spent on a surveillance industry involving an estimated 300,000 cameras covering shopping areas, housing estates, car parks and public facilitiesa in great many towns and cities.

While Britain is clearly the lead nation in implementing CCTV, other countries are quickly following. North America, Australia and some European countries which a few years ago would have rejected the technology, are installing the cameras in urban environments.

CCTV is very quickly becoming an integral part of crime control policy, social control theory and Community consciousness. It is promoted by police and politicians as primary solution for urban dysfunction. It is no exaggeration to conclude that in Britain, the technology has had more of an impact on the evolution of law enforcement policy than just about any technology initiative in the past two decades.

Privacy International has consistently expressed its concern over the development of this technology. This page offers information and advice about the downside of a technology which we believe will have a profound effect on future generations.

New Items

  Home Secretary Announces £150 million extension of CCTV in England and Wales. UK Home Secretary Jack Straw, who was awarded a 1999 UK Big Brother Award for his promotion of CCTV annuonced a massive extention of CCTV in England and Wales to fight petty crime. BBC Online, November 20, 1999).

PI Overviews

• Privacy International's CCTV Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). (2,000 words).
  
  
• Privacy International Statement on CCTV Surveillance, October 15, 1996.
  
  
• Testimony of Director General Simon Davies before the UK House of Lords on visual evidence and surveillance, October 23, 1997.

Other Analyses

• Dr Clive Norris and Gary Armstrong of the Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice at Hull University, The Unforgiving Eye: CCTV surveillance in public space,
  
  
  • 40% of people were targeted for "no obvious reason", mainly "on the basis of belonging to a particular or subcultural group". "Black people were between one-and-a-half and two-and-a-half times more likely to be surveilled than one would expect from their presence in the population".
  • 30% of targeted surveillances on black people were protracted, lasting 9 minutes or more, compared with just 10% on white people.
  • People were selected primarily on the basis of "the operators negative attitudes towards male youth in general and black male youth in particular. ...if a youth was categorised as a "scrote" they were subject to prolonged and intensive surveillance."
  • Those deemed to be "out of time and out of place" with the commercial image of city centre streets were subjected to prolonged surveillance. "Thus drunks, beggars, the homeless, street traders were all subject to intense surveillance".
  • "Finally, anyone who directly challenged, by gesture or deed, the right of the cameras to monitor them was especially subject to targeting."
  
  
  
• The Scottish Centre for Criminology, CCTV and Crime Prevention (A series of papers analyzing CCTV)
  
  
• UK House of Lords, Select Committee on Science and Technology, Digital Images As Evidence, 3 February 1998.
  
  
• Information and Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia, Video surveillance by public bodies: a discussion, March 31, 1998.
  
  
• Privacy Committee of New South Wales, Invisible Eyes: Report on Video Surveillance in the Workplace .
  
  
• NZ Privacy Commission, CASE NOTE: 0632 - Covert surveillance of employees - Information privacy principles 3 and 4.
  
  
• NZ Privacy Commission, CASE NOTE: 1635 Video surveillance by a neighbour - Manner of collection - 6
  
  
• Juriscom, La videosurveillance en Belgique (Video Surveillance in Belgium), 21 Mars 1999. (in French)
  
  
• ACLU of Northern California, Arguments to the Oakland City Council on the Use of Police Surveillance Cameras, May1997. The surveillance plan was rejected by the City of Oakland. See Oakland Kills Video Surveillance in 1997 and again in 1999 (Second Attempt Fails to Install Spy Cams on Oakland Streets ).
  
  
• UK Data Protection Registrar, CCTV Guidance Notes, January 1998. (Note: Act has changed since this analysis was written).
  
  
• US Department of Transportation, Use of Videotape in HOV Lane Surveillance and Enforcement: Final Report, March 1990.

New technologies

• Image of a person scanned using a new Bodysearch x-ray device from AS&E;
  
  
• Real World Surveillance Threats - Video Devices and Transmitters. Images of different hidden cameras and transmitters.
  
  

News Stories

• BBC, School installs spy cameras in toilets, November 5, 1999.
  
  
• BBC, Government maintains CCTV vision, August 11, 1999.
  
  
• BBC, CCTV out of focus with crime, July 14, 1999
  
  
• BBC, Keeping an eye on secret cameras, May 11, 1999.
  
  
• CNN, Neighborhood spycam helps catch murder suspect, February 9, 1999.
  
  
• BBC, Unmasking Criminals - Facial Recognition, November 25, 1998.
  
  
• Sydney Morning Herald, Council pays $1.5m to keep eye on city, December 18, 1998.
  
  
• BBC, Internet cameras to guard school? October 13, 1998.
  
  
• Sydney Morning Herald, Privacy worry over bosses' video eye on workers, September 10, 1998.
  
  
• Surveillance in New York City, The Atlantic Monthly, July 1998.
  
  
• Prejudice drives CCTV targets, KDIS Online, October 24, 1997.
  
  "People are selected and targeted by "Spy-cameras" according to the prejudices of the CCTV operators, a damning new study by one of the regions top Criminologists shows. "The young, the male and the black were systematically and disproportionately targeted, not because of their involvement in crime or disorder, but for 'no obvious reason'", says the study. Also targeted were young people described as "scrotes", the homeless, and "anyone who directly challenged... the right of the cameras to monitor them....1 in 10 women were targeted for entirely "voyeuristic" reasons by the male operators, according to the researchers."
  
  
• CCTV - Big Brother in Bradford, KDIS Online, March 1997.
  
  
• Footage of video surveillance from ACLU video on workplace privacy.
  
  
• CNN, Peeping Tom goes high tech. Technology surpasses laws governing privacy, March 28, 1996.
  
  
• CNN, Public cameras draw ire of privacy experts, March 29, 1996.
  
  
• Boston Globe, "Video aided arrest raises privacy concerns", April 18, 1995.