Ever get the feeling you're being watched? It's a rhetorical question, of course; with surveillance cameras seemingly on every corner in some parts of the city, we know beyond a doubt that we are being watched. But so what?
In Winnipeg, police reported that five of the city's photo-radar cameras were dismantled and turned into makeshift speedbumps. This incident comes on the heels of a handful of other acts of vandalism suffered by the ill-favoured surveillance devices this year, like the incident in 2003 in which a motorist allegedly fired a shotgun (twice) at a camera after being clocked at 27 km/h over the 50 km/h speed limit.
While I have never been a fan of surveillance cameras, or Winnipeg for that matter, I was troubled by the devices' woeful tale. It's not that I can't sympathize with the vandals' animosity towards Big Brother, I just think they picked the wrong targets.
According to camera proponents, "If you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear." Their claims are bolstered by statistics that show a demonstrable decline in criminal activity in areas under Big Brother's watch. And of course there is the now-familiar refrain that, whatever we may have thought about privacy intrusion before 9/11, the prevention of future terrorist attacks renders privacy considerations obsolete.
Confronting these arguments in favour of constant surveillance is a mix of libertarian ranting, lefty rhetoric, and, er … the law.
Enter our friend, PIPEDA — the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act — the privacy-protection legislation that recently came into force across Canada. PIPEDA, together with supplemental provincial legislation, is the basis of a comprehensive body of legal privacy protection that would actually work if it were enforced.
The intention of these laws, with respect to surveillance cameras, is to make it illegal to view or record an identifiable image of an individual without that individual's consent. Limited exceptions permit surveillance for purposes that are specifically identified and justifiably necessary to law enforcement, such as a camera focused on a property's entrance. But the law is quite clear: no surveillance without consent.
This stipulation could, in part, be responsible for the decision by the Toronto Police Service Board (TPSB) to forego plans for surveillance of Dundas Square. Though PIPEDA was not yet applicable when the TPSB last floated its plans in 2002, board members were reminded that video monitoring had to conform to an existing Ontario law governing the collection of personal information by municipalities. (Another explanation for the TPSB's u-turn, reported by Now Magazine, is that the police couldn't find the extra money to monitor the cameras.)
While the Toronto police may have been forced to forego video surveillance of Dundas Square, the area is still subject to security cameras. Private security firm Intelligarde monitors the cameras installed as part of its contract to enforce the Square's rules of use. Thus, the real issue highlighted by the surveillance of Dundas Square is the broader failure to properly and evenly enforce our existing privacy laws.
While privacy advocates such as the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition and Councillor Sandra Bussin were able to persuade the TPSB to respect the law, they will be hard-pressed to hold the city's corporate citizenry to the same standard. Not that the restrictions are any greater for municipalities — especially with the enactment of PIPEDA — it is just that public bodies face the additional requirement of disclosing their activities to the public through freedom of information requests. So, while the restrictions on security-voyeurism make no distinction between the police and a private security company, chances are you will never know of the latter, whereas the police may occasionally be tripped up by their civilian overseers.
Though surveillance cameras are ubiquitous, the laws controlling their use are actually adequate. That remedies for infraction are weak and uncertain has more to do with the laws not having been applied, tested and refined. What is needed is for people to seize upon these legal protections and enforce their rights. Historical parallels exist and provide reason for optimism — think of the state of human rights and environmental protection laws a generation ago.
In the meantime, photo radar and red-light cameras deserve the support of pedestrians and privacy-crusaders alike. They deter dangerous driving by making it more likely that infractions of traffic rules will be detected and they ensure that all infractions will be punished in an even-handed, objective manner. Unlike putting a surveillance camera in Dundas Square, traffic-enforcement cameras limit the collection of personal information to only those cases in which a law has actually been broken. Intentionally or not, photo radar and red-light cameras are the ultimate expression of legitimate invasions of privacy.
It was in the context of our underused and misunderstood privacy laws that I first considered Winnipeg's "camera-shyness." Once I realized that the cameras in question were some of the few surveillance devices whose mandate and use actually stays within the bounds of privacy law, I began to wonder whether Winnipeg's video vigilantes' misguided rage was an aberration or a sign of things to come. Maybe, instead of battling the camera's physical presence, the public needs to discover and assert its privacy rights.