Thanks Charles,
My point is that if we talk about about CCTV primarily in relation to
issues of privacy,and data protection, then we tend to underemphasise
its social sorting effects. In Britain, at least, it would appear that
the data protection regime has facilitated, rather than restricted the
growth of camera based surveillance, and that social exclusion has
proved an ellusive concept for the ICO to graple within their data
protection remit.
C
On 04/03/2011 07:28, Charles Raab wrote:
> Dear Colleagues:
>
> The Gerrard report on CCTV cameras (which I haven't yet read; where
> can it be found?) was spun in different ways in the UK yesterday.
> Gerrard himself didn't seek to rubbish the 4.2 million figure or its
> provenance, and (I recall) said that a 'numbers game' was beside the
> point. The BBC however was saying, in effect, 'new research shows that
> it's not as bad as all that, and we aren't quite so subject to
> surveillance as we had been led to believe'. I think other media
> played up the excessive ubiquity of CCTV. Well, we do still have media
> pluralism in the UK.
>
> As for privacy and/or discrimination, the issue is certainly both, and
> an important key (but not the only key, for there needs to be a
> separate analysis of the effects of surveillance on other values
> besides privacy) to countering the latter is through the rules and
> principles developed to protect the former. The Australian CCTV
> document that Roger points to embodies principles that can't help
> referring to the question of privacy, and in fact to a large extent
> can be mapped onto, or be derived from, well-known privacy principles.
> So, too, can a very large proportion of Gary Marx's renowned 'ethics
> for the new surveillance' principles. We should not suppose that any
> particular person probably doesn't care about her privacy (this is
> also a non-empirical fallacy committed by those who see little danger
> in social networking behaviour), although it might not be the only
> thing she cares about with regard to CCTV or other surveillance
> techniques.
>
> Moreover, privacy law doesn't only operate when the individual 'cares
> about' privacy, else we wouldn't have rules and regulatory agencies
> (for all their faults) that don't depend on whether you or I happen to
> want our privacy protected in any given situation. It's a matter of
> public policy, declaring that privacy should be protected. We
> shouldn't throw the privacy regulatory baby out with the bath-water,
> because ? for all its shortcomings in implementation ? when linked to
> human rights law, it is one of the main resources for safeguarding
> individuals and society in this field. I am currently writing on this
> with regard to privacy impact assessment, based on what was said in
> the SSN's 2006 SSN report to the UK Information Commissioner, which I
> helped to write (see Part D).
>
> The SSN 2006 report said there 'may be' 4.2 million cameras, rather
> than declaring that there were in fact 4.2 million. The House of Lords
> report on 'Surveillance: Citizens and the State' (2009), with which I
> had something to do, was careful to say that it was difficult to say
> how many cameras there were but pointed to the estimate of over 4
> million. I'm glad that both these reports refrained from making
> definite assertions, and especially glad now that we have Gerrard's
> figures (themselves an estimate but based on what looks like better
> methods).
>
> Charles Raab
>
>
> Quoting Roger Clarke <[log in to unmask]>:
>
>> At 1:58 +0000 4/3/11, Clive Norris wrote:
>>> ... Im less concerned with how these cameras undermine our privacy -
>>> but the extent they reinforce social exclusion. If im a young black
>>> male , I probably dont give a toss about might privacy rights - but
>>> I care deeply that the security guard says I can't enter the Mall.
>>
>> Agreed. And there are quite a few bases for unreasonable
>> discrimination, including age, gender, age and gender combined (young
>> males), disability, religious garb (burqa, Hare Krishna outfits),
>> down-at-heel garb (itinerants, 'gypsies'), as well as specifically
>> racial factors.
>>
>> Some aspects are not surveillance issues as such, e.g. if the
>> security guards are targeting without justification, indulging in
>> voyeurism, etc., then other controls are needed - and of course
>> sousveillance may be a useful countermeasure. (As a US poster to
>> another list pointed out, 3 Mar was 20 years to the day that the LAPD
>> was outed over the Rodney King incident).
>>
>> To the extent that CCTV *is* the issue, however, I submit that the 10
>> Principles are as applicable to discrimination as to privacy:
>>
>> [APF] Policy Statement re Visual Surveillance, incl. CCTV
>> http://www.privacy.org.au/Papers/CCTV-1001.html
>>
>> Feedback on that proposition would be valued (on- or off-list of
>> course).
>>
>> It could be that we should be trying to float the 'ownership' of the
>> draft off into some broader context, rather than sitting it inside
>> just one organisation that's inherently limited by geography and by
>> human-value.
>>
>> (Case Study: APF is currently arm-in-arm with a range of healthcare
>> consumer groups that are working for meaningful consumer advocacy
>> involvement in eHealth Records in Oz. So we have a sequence of
>> documents - written by various organisations - which deal with
>> Consumer Aspirations first, Consumer Concerns second, Privacy
>> Concerns third, and Governance Issues in a fourth chapter).
>>
>> _______________________________________________________________________
>>
>>
>>>> Very large numbers of these installations resulted from knee-jerk
>>>> reactions to current security concerns, were not subject to careful
>>>> evaluation, lack the associated infrastructure and resources, and
>>>> demonstrably don't make significant contributions to security.
>>>>
>>>> Yet, whether or not they make much in the way of positive
>>>> contributions, they bring with them privacy threats that are both
>>>> specific (leakage of personal data, inconvenience and worse arising
>>>> from false positives) and generic (chilling effect); and in many
>>>> cases those privacy threats are subject to seriously inadequate
>>>> safeguards.
>>>>
>>>> Do we have a citizen / consumer / employee Standard in place that
>>>> can be used to assess existing installations and proposals for new
>>>> and changed installations, and to guide organisations undertaking
>>>> their own assessments?
>>>>
>>>> Here's one proposal for such a Standard:
>>>> APF Policy Statement re Visual Surveillance, incl. CCTV
>>>> http://www.privacy.org.au/Papers/CCTV-1001.html
>>
>>
>> --
>> Roger Clarke http://www.rogerclarke.com/
>>
>> Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
>> Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
>> mailto:[log in to unmask] http://www.xamax.com.au/
>>
>> Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW
>> Visiting Professor in Computer Science Australian National University
>>
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