The Sunday Times
11/3/01

http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2001/03/11/stinwenws02016.html

New camera extends watch on crime 

James Clark and Dipesh Gadher 

THE number of surveillance cameras in Britain is set to double over the next
three years to 2m following Home Office approval of a new system that can be
run at a fraction of the cost of existing networks. 

The new system is a wireless application which employs mobile phone
technology to beam pictures from cameras to portable monitoring devices such
as laptops and hand-held PCs. It will cost up to 80% less than conventional
closed-circuit television (CCTV) packages because it eliminates the need for
expensive cabling. 

Police forces, struggling to maintain patrol levels outside city centres,
have welcomed the development as it will allow them to keep an eye on rural
and suburban areas at low cost. 

However, with Britain already the biggest user in the world of CCTV, civil
liberties campaigners fear the growth of a Big Brother culture. An
individual is already likely to be filmed by up to 300 cameras a day,
according to experts. 

"We are very concerned about the fact that the protection of privacy and
regulation of CCTV is lagging behind new developments in technology like
this," said John Wadham, the director of Liberty. 

As many as 20 public bodies, including local authorities and police forces,
are expected to receive Home Office funding to set up the new surveillance
technology over the coming months following the successful completion of
trials earlier this year. Smaller organisations, such as schools, are likely
to be encouraged to apply for government grants for the system, even if it
means just a single camera as a crime reduction measure. 

"Expanding CCTV is very much on our agenda," said a Home Office source last
week. "This type of equipment is something we have had people looking at for
quite a while. 

"It means that we can get cameras into more difficult and isolated areas
without having to spend loads of money or digging up the neighbourhood." 

The new equipment, based on an open-circuit television security system
(OCTV), has been developed by Shawley, an electronics company in Newport,
south Wales. 

The firm has signed contracts with police forces in Australia, New Zealand
and Thailand, as well as selling the technology to many private companies
around the world. 

The OCTV system uses specially adapted pan, tilt and zoom cameras, costing
about £3,000 each, which contain a hard drive and a mobile phone to allow
data to be transmitted to remote devices. A police officer can view footage
from a camera or manoeuvre its position - whether he is around the corner or
in another country - by dialling it from either a desktop PC, a portable
laptop or a hand-held device. 

For security purposes, the camera will respond only to a registered
monitoring device and an authorised telephone number. The images it sends
will be encrypted. 

The Home Office accepts that OCTV images are good enough to be used as
evidence in court. However, OCTV will be revolutionised by the advent of
third-generation, or 3G, mobile phone technology. 

Under this system, likely to take off in Britain in the next two to three
years, far more digital information can be transmitted much more quickly. 

"This system is ideally suited to smaller towns and villages," said Olinga
Ta'eed, managing director of Shawley. "We can't claim that the image quality
we are offering now is better than the £500,000 city CCTV systems but it
will vastly improve with the arrival of 3G." 

Home Office trials of the OCTV system were conducted over two months around
King's Lynn in Norfolk and near Hexham in Northumbria. 

"Our plan is not to tackle crime as such but to reduce the fear of crime -
and to that end this system was ideal," said PC Harry Wilkinson, crime
prevention officer in Hexham. 

Northumbria is likely to be one of the first areas to install the system on
a permanent basis. Interest has also been shown by police in Nottinghamshire
and the West Midlands. 

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