Surveillance camera use must be proportionate says ICO

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has warned CCTV operators that surveillance cameras must only be used as a necessary and proportionate response.

The warning comes on the day the ICO published its updated CCTV code of practice, which looks at the data protection requirements for operators of new and emerging surveillance technologies, including drones and body-worn video cameras.

The updated code explains how CCTV and other forms of camera surveillance can be used to process people’s information.

The guidance explains the issues that operators should consider before installing such surveillance technology, as well as the measures that organisations should have in place to make sure excessive amounts of personal information are not being collected and that information is kept secure and destroyed once it is no longer required.

ICO head of strategic liaison, Jonathan Bamford, said the failure to do proper privacy impact assessments in advance has been a common theme in ICO enforcement cases, and that surveillance cameras should not be deployed as a quick fix.

“Putting in surveillance cameras or technology like automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) and body worn video is often seen as the first option, but before deploying it you need to understand the problem and whether that is an effective and proportionate solution,” he said.

“The technology on the market today is able to pick out even more people to be recorded in ever greater detail. In some cases, that detail can then be compared with other databases, for instance when ANPR is used.

“This brings new opportunities to tackle problems such as crime, but also potential threats to privacy if they are just being used to record innocent members of the public without good reason.”

Last year the ICO served an enforcement notice on Hertfordshire Constabulary after the force installed ANPR cameras to on every road into and leaving Royston, following the ICO’s action the number of surveillance cameras was reduced. The reduction was approved by the ICO in March.