PI warns London Metropolitan Police on their latest surveillance promotional campaign

13/04/2009

Here is one of the original posters, taken from the Met's website:

We have drafted a formal letter to the Police Commissioner (see below)... but we also thought we couldn't pass up the opportunity to come up with some of our own slogans. (Click on the images for the full resolution pictures) UPDATE: We just found some other great parodies on boing boing (off-site).

13th April 2009

Sir Paul Stephenson,
Commissioner,
Metropolitan Police Service,
New Scotland Yard,
Broadway, London
SW1H 0BG

Dear Commissioner,

I am writing on behalf of Privacy International, a London-based Non Governmental Organisation that since 1990 has performed the function of an international watchdog on intrusion into privacy.

Your new campaign, which calls on Londoners to report suspicious behaviour, has prompted a number of complaints to us from members of the public. I wish to raise these concerns with you in the hope that you can resolve what appears to be a serious issue relating to a potential negative outcome from this initiative.

One of the posters at the forefront of your reporting campaign shows a crowd scene with the words “A bomb won’t go off here because weeks before a shopper reported someone studying the CCTV cameras.”

Privacy International has no issue with the claim that the use of CCTV may under limited circumstances act as a deterrent to certain criminal activity, but we feel that the assertion made in this poster is dangerous and misleading. We hope you agree that nearly all the criminological evidence over the past fifteen years has established that CCTV has marginal impact on serious crime, but does have some value in deterring some categories of opportunistic crime. To in any way assert that the technology has value beyond those uses would be grossly misleading. To imply that the mere reporting of such scrutiny may categorically eliminate the threat of a terrorist attack is in our view irresponsible and dangerous.

To begin, we take issue with the proposition that anyone "studying" CCTV cameras may constitute a threat to security. These cameras are supposed to be visible and conspicuous. The Data Protection Act, as you know, requires that their installation and existence is not secretive unless in prescribed circumstances.

How then is it reasonable or appropriate to urge the public to report scrutiny of what is, in effect, a piece of street furniture? And what constitutes the act of “studying”? CCTV has become a prominent and in places a unique feature of modern Britain, and millions of tourists every year go out of their way to take photographs of these devices. Is the Met suggesting that every such tourist should be reported? Should a local resident who wishes to scrutinize for legitimate reasons a part of the local environment anticipate a report to the terrorism hotline?

A number of staff members at Privacy International also hold teaching posts at universities. Should we advise those students who write essays and dissertations on visual surveillance to avert their eyes from the cameras? Does a student who maps the location of cameras or who photographs them for research purposes constitute a threat to national security? My colleagues and I, as surveillance specialists, often take careful note of new CCTV systems. How can a member of the public or indeed your hotline staff know that our intentions are benign? We seek your advice on this important point.

We understand – and we have directly confirmed with your hotline staff – that each instance must be judged on its own merit. However your staff also made clear to us their belief that the mere photographing of a CCTV installation itself constitutes “unusual behaviour”. This is an absurd notion. It is everyone’s right in a free society to scrutinize the mechanisms that scrutinize us.

In our view, this poster is misguided and inappropriate. Its promotion will create and perpetuate a myth that the mere reporting of anyone observing a camera will help the national effort to combat the threat of terrorism. This is, in our view, counter productive and just plain wrong. From your own operation perspective surely this genre of reporting carries with it the risk of information overload with a consequential threat that genuinely suspicious activity will be overlooked.

We look forward to receiving your advice on this matter. In the meantime we will urge complainants, our members and the public to notify the Hotline in advance should they intend observing or photographing a CCTV camera.

We urge you to abandon the use of this particular poster and instead create one that carries a genuinely useful message that alerts the public to the important outcome that you seek to achieve.

Yours sincerely

Simon Davies

Related:
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UK Home Office releases research on CCTV effectiveness
PI Files complaint about expansion of CCTV on Toronto transit network