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School Childrens CCTV Images on ebay A recent test purchase on ebay by CCTV compliance specialist Video Management Services has revealed images of children in a school environment in direct contravention of Data Protection and Human Rights Legislation. Brian Larkins a director of Video Management Services (VMS) said that ‘Recent CCTV audits that we have undertaken left us with a concern that their was little or no control of images held on redundant recording equipment hard drives’. To test the theory VMS made a random purchase of a second-hand digital CCTV recorder on ebay. ‘We were not surprised to find the hard drive was full of images, but it was particularly disturbing to find they were of young children where schools have a legal and moral duty of care to keep images in a secure manner’. Before video tape became redundant in favour of digital recording, the images recorded to tape were at least restricted to 24 hours from individual tapes and these were encoded in such a way that playback was virtually impossible without specialist equipment. In the new digital age of CCTV a single hard drive incorporated in a recorder can hold weeks of high quality images in real time. Unless this is properly managed and processed a redundant machine can simply be plugged in and connected to a monitor to enable play back. |
A Light-hearted View The Case for CCTV Compliance If the matter is ever discussed within Mega Chain Retail plc the conversation could go along the lines of; Security Manager – ‘We really must tackle the issue of CCTV Data Protection Act compliance, it is an important issue and we are simply not complying in any of our stores’ Company Secretary – ‘Yes, you are quite right I have been reading up on this myself and we have been outside the law on this one since it was introduced, we really must do something’ Finance Director – ‘What’s this going to cost?’ Security Manager – ‘About £100 per branch on top of the CCTV maintenance’ Finance Director – ‘Well that’s not too bad I suppose’ Chairman – ‘Have you all given leave of your senses that’s £63,500 over 635 branches! It might well be ‘The Law’ but I’ve never heard of anyone being taken to task over this one. I didn’t get where I am today by chucking money away!’ Security Manager – ‘You’re quite right Sir, Come to think of it I was watching a programme on the telly only last week when the Information Commissioner admitted that they did not have the facilities to police it’ Chairman – ‘You will go far young man, I’ve had my eye on you for a while now, fancy a pint on the way home’ 3 weeks later at a hurriedly convened management meeting; Finance Director – ‘The old mans gone berserk, you know someone reversed into his Bentley in the car park last week’ Company Secretary – ‘Don’t we know, of course we do, along with the entire population of
Loss Prevention Director (ex Security Manager)– ‘Calm down chaps, we had the whole incident covered on CCTV, in fact Sir complimented me for being so efficient’ Finance Director – ‘That may well be true, but your new best mate wants that bloody Security Manager in his office right now, apparently the recording was so poor you can’t make out the other car’s number plate or recognise the person driving it’ Company Secretary – ‘before you cut along to Sirs office you had better know the police are of the opinion that as we are not Data Protection Act compliant the evidence would not have been much use anyway!’ Finance Director viewing the about to be demoted Loss Prevention Director scurrying towards Sir’s office – ‘ well I guess that’s the end of his meteoric career, fancy talking the old man out of the CCTV compliance issue, I said we had the budget’ |
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