HOW much do you think it would cost to buy a video camera about
two-thirds the size of a box of matches, capable of taking images at low-light
levels and with a resolution of 380 lines or more?
In a straw poll around the New 杏吧原创 office, the lowest guess was
拢300 (around $500). In fact, it鈥檚 possible to pick up a camera that
even James Bond鈥檚 legendary M would be proud of for just under 拢60 (less
than $100). For a little extra, the camera comes already concealed in a
smoke alarm, intruder detector, clock, filing book or other innocuous piece of
everyday equipment.
The size and price of video surveillance equipment has fallen faster than
anyone would have thought possible only a few years ago. But rules governing
their use haven鈥檛 quite kept up. In Europe, the European Union is now struggling
to fill the gap with legislation intended to protect privacy (see p 4).
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Those selling miniaturised surveillance equipment make no bones about their
new number one business market鈥攌eeping tabs on employees by monitoring
work practices and preventing theft by staff and customers. 鈥淜eep the profits in
the till where they belong and ensure courtesy and efficiency from staff at all
times,鈥� says the promotional material for one supplier. And the range of objects
in which tiny cameras can be hidden means that they raise 鈥渁bsolutely no
suspicion whatsoever鈥�.
Britain鈥檚 retail sector, for one, will be grateful. It lost an estimated
拢1.9 billion in 1994 to internal theft by staff, shoplifters and
suppliers. Staff were responsible for 拢571 million of this total, far more
than the 拢370 million of losses attributed to burglars and smash and grab
raids.
The tiny cameras are also coming into their own as security monitors within
the family. They are advertised for checking the 鈥渄iscipline techniques of child
minders鈥�. They can also be cheaply linked into networks connected to passive
infrared motion detectors so that your television set automatically tracks where
the children are in the house鈥攐r the progress of an intruder.
Conventional video cameras鈥攊ncreasingly used to police city
centres鈥攁re also growing cheaper. And they too will soon be smarter. Video
networks will be much better integrated with other types of detector and
analysed by more sophisticated software. A city-centre network will, for
example, be able to pick up the noise of a brawl and automatically track and
zoom in on people fleeing from it. In Amsterdam鈥檚 Schiphol airport, face
recognition software will soon be used to record the identity of people parking
at the airport in order to protect vehicles from car thieves.
In public places, conventional video security is proving a hit. In south
London, Lewisham Council spent 拢300 000 on a video security system to
cover a large housing estate. The tenants are claimed to be 鈥渙ver the moon鈥�,
feeling more secure and seeing vandalism reduced. The council also hope to use
it to stamp out racial harassment. And in Brighton, city centre crime fell by 10
per cent after a network of video cameras was introduced. Of some 500 people
surveyed in the seaside town, 90 per cent said the cameras made people feel
safer.
With so much public support, it is tempting to say that regulation is not
necessary. But there are still unresolved questions about conventional security
cameras the EU initiative could help to solve.
At the moment, in most of Europe, anyone can collect video information and
there are no standards about how securely it is transmitted or stored, who can
have access to it, where video cameras can be placed or who needs to be informed
of their existence.
There is nothing to stop private companies recording activities in the
streets around their buildings and passing on copies of what they record.
Indeed, tapes of 鈥渞eal crimes鈥� are already for sale.
The use of miniaturised surveillance equipment raises issues of privacy which
the public is scarcely aware of yet. Although everyone is pleased to see
villains locked up, should innocent people be watched at work by guards of whom
they know nothing?
Many of the minimum principles of a code of good practice have already been
laid out by Britain鈥檚 Local Government Information Unit. They recognise the
individual鈥檚 need to be informed if there is a chance that they will end up on
videotape, that data can only be used for a prestated purpose and that the
security of the data and the standard of staff who view video data be
guaranteed.
Now is the time to act. In the not-so-distant future鈥攕ay three or four
years from now鈥攖he intelligence of video analysis software will have
increased many times. The rights and privacy of individuals need to be
guaranteed before all power passes to those who own the tools of
surveillance.
