F E AT U R E
Pack of eyes You are being watched. Do you care? And does it matter? More than 500 public CCTV cameras, and probably many more private cameras, are in operation in Wellington. John Bishop talks to the people sitting behind them.
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alk from the corner of Willis and Manners Streets to Courtenay Place and you’ll be seen at least nine times on the Wellington City Council’s cameras. Dodge into Dixon Street and there are another three cameras there; another three are up Cuba Street. In total there are 34 counciloperated cameras, which are intended to make inner Wellington safer by monitoring what’s happening on the streets and helping police to take appropriate action. The council owns the cameras and shares the pictures in a live stream with the police, where volunteers (suitably vetted and trained) monitor the screens for indications of possibly criminal behaviour or actions that place anyone at risk. There are hundreds more cameras in business premises looking out onto the streets, and in alleyways and nooks immediately outside offices, shops, apartments and the like – all in the name of protecting property, by deterring and detecting offenders. If you loiter or linger, cuddle or canoodle, fall asleep or vomit in a doorway, chances are you will be seen and recorded. Just how many private cameras are operating in Wellington isn’t known, because permission to operate one isn’t needed, although all operators are required to comply with the Privacy Act. Just how much protection this legislation provides is questionable because it’s hard to know what happens to the footage.
In December 2019 the New Zealand Herald reported 567 public CCTV cameras in Wellington, many of them operated by the government’s Transport Agency. By comparison Auckland had 5,486 cameras, of which 54 percent were operated by Auckland Transport. And that’s still not counting the cameras which operate inside shops supposedly to prevent shoplifting and the like. It’s part of the surveillance society; cameras are everywhere and there seems little we can do about it unless we shop only online, socialise only in our own dwellings, and don’t go out in the inner city at night. Righto! Nicola Moreham is a Professor of Law at Victoria University of Wellington, specialising in media and privacy issues. Her concern is that CCTV is part of a movement over many years – the encroachment of cameras and other forms of surveillance into all aspects of our lives. ‘You simply can’t avoid CCTV in most cities in the UK.’ She is more concerned about surveillance by private entities than by government bodies because it is more difficult to know what footage from them is accessed and what use is made of it. Annabel Fordham, the Public Affairs Manager at the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, herself a lawyer, explains that parties operating cameras are obliged to comply with the main principles of the Privacy Act, which includes disclosing that CCTV cameras are operating. Visible signage saying so is sufficient.
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