Freedom Bill and CCTV Regulation

Date: 11.11.2011

Today I consigned my ATEC hat to the cupboard and put on my CCTV Industry peaked cap to represent the BSIA at the Global MSC CCTV conference in Newcastle. The afternoon session was a Question Time style panel where members of the audience fired questions at us, mainly focussed on the themes of the conference, which were the Protection of Freedoms Bill and use of CCTV in the recent riots.

The Freedom Bill is currently passing through the House of Lords on its way to Royal Assent next year. It is the manifestation of the coalition government's commitment to "Further regulate CCTV". It provides for the appointment of a CCTV regulator and the introduction of a Code of Practice for the Implementation and Development of CCTV schemes but it is vague on what these are to contain.

The Code of Practice itself will have the real detail, and is scheduled for publication at the back end of 2012. Initially the Code of Practice looks likely to apply only to public space CCTV schemes such as town centres and transport hubs.

There is a mood of disappointment amongst CCTV professionals that the government is targeting legislation at operators who already (by and large) operate compliant and effective schemes, and who have a good awareness of existing CCTV legislation and standards such as the Data Protection Act.

Initially the least compliant 95% of CCTV cameras won't be covered it seems. The practical issues of non compliance are many and varied but the headlines are that the Police struggle to obtain useable evidence from many systems and this needs to be addressed.

It is only through my active involvement on BSIA committees that I manage to keep up with best practice and bring that practice back to ATEC. Given the competitive pressures in our industry it is no wonder that the small installers and the non-specialists are largely non-compliant. It worries me that there is already a substantial body of standards and legislation which are not effectively enforced (take the Data Protection Act for example), and that we are going to take the same approach with the Freedoms Bill.

Is the CCTV Commissioner going to have the powers and the resource to enforce compliance? Given the coalitions murmurings about "light touch regulation" I doubt it. Andrew Rennison was until recently the interim CCTV Regulator and is now the Forensic Science Regulator. He spoke of the public's confidence in CCTV being high but fragile.

It is easily undermined by reports of inappropriate use and management of CCTV - such as last year's Project Champion debacle in Birmingham. A recent survey reports that 73% of people feel safer due to CCTV and 63% want more of it, a position that is said to have improved following the recent riots so you might think that support for CCTV is strong.

Consider though that neither the technology nor the operators have changed significantly in recent months and you realise that in the public's mind CCTV is only as good as its last spate of news stories. So we wait with interest to see what will be in the Code of Practice.

At the BSIA we will influence it for the better where we can. Let us hope that the scope is extended beyond just public space. That is what's needed to drive up standards within our industry and eliminate the poor quality systems and practices that damage our industry's reputation.

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