CCTV, Data Analytics and Privacy: The Baby and the Bathwater

Abstract

While it can be criticised for polemic and hyperbolic language, the casual and inconsistent use of statistics and the trailing of unsupported conspiracy theories, commentary on the use of CCTV analytics by campaigning groups and others can raise important points. There is clearly a need for a defined regulatory approach to developing appropriate processes and safeguards to permit such analytics to be accountably incorporated into legitimate surveillance practices in public and private sectors. The problems with the nature of such commentary lie in its largely undiscriminating and scattergun approach to the technologies, and in the tendency of legislators and regulators to respond to its polarising rhetoric rather than promote critical review. The danger is that by conflating the capabilities of technology with wider systemic problems of poor organisational processes, lax regulatory standards and inadequate oversight, campaigning groups consistently overlook the fact that advances in the technology may contain the seeds of effective regulatory control. A more nuanced and thoughtful approach is required to the issue of CCTV analytics to avoid potential regulatory gains via the technology itself being lost in a wave of underinformed and poorly focused reaction.