Responsible camera use or CCTV considerations

While the advantages of CCTV cameras on your home are obvious, there are many other implications that you may not have considered

While the advantages of CCTV cameras on your home are obvious, there are many other implications that you may not have considered. Where you position your cameras, where they point and how you store the data collected from them could all have knock on effects you haven’t thought about, or could even land in you in trouble with the authorities. Olivia Rudgard wrote in the Telegraph about the story of a toddler, Lucy Wilding, who was hit by a cyclist on the pavement outside her home as she was getting into her parent’s car. The family’s  CCTV footage of the horrible incident was crucial in  identifying the cyclist who’d fled the scene and was then used on a broader spectrum to highlight the dangers of reckless cycling. Nobody had ever thought when the cameras were installed that they’d ever be used in this way so it poses an interesting argument for the benefits of home CCTV.

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, head of London’s Met Police, welcomes the use of home CCTV and says that more homes should use them. Cameras that record images outside the boundaries of people’s homes can be valuable assets to the police and certainly constitute an added resource when it comes to the gathering of supporting evidence. But following a new ruling by the European Court of Justice the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) who regulate the use of CCTV in the UK say “Operators must operate within the law, for instance by making sure that their use the siting of cameras is justified, that the information they are collecting is not excessive, that it is only kept until it is no longer required and that it’s kept secure.”

So when installing cameras it’s a good idea to have it done by someone with up to date knowledge of what is permissible and what isn’t. Some cameras have features where certain areas are blanked out to protect the public.

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