Knock knock
Who's there?
Ring
Ring who?
Ring the doorbell to find out: it has a camera on it

 Katie Melua may have been fascinated by the fact that there are nine million bicycles in Beijing but she probably did not notice while she was there that she was being tracked by nearly eight million CCTV cameras – maybe she was too busy trying to dodge all those cyclists. Beijing is not even the top of the international CCTV league, a league China dominates in a near Olympian fashion. Still, those of us in the UK can take comfort from the fact that, London does make the top ten outside China: GREAT Britain still punching above its weight in the post-colonial, post-Brexit era – bravo all round. 

 Indeed, anyone coming to London this week will no doubt take comfort from the fact that they will be enveloped in the gentle digital embrace of the Metropolitan Police, TfL, local councils, GLA and innumerable private organisations, some of whom may even have bothered to tell their unsuspecting surveillance targets of their intentions through a well-situated, clear and comprehensive CCTV notice… (and you thought the joke at the top was bad). 

 These figures do not even include the proliferation of domestic (using the term advisedly here) CCTV across the world’s doorways like so much Japanese knotweed. In spite of the odd civil case, there has been very little enforcement around CCTV (domestic or corporate) while ever more elaborate ‘smart’ systems are being promoted.  

 One recent case involved one resident of a block of local authority flats installing a camera from their flat overlooking the entrance to the building, claiming as ever the need to protect bicycles from theft. Adding social media insult to the lack of consultation injury insult other residents found themselves in receipt of images of themselves and others routinely posted on neighbourhood social media, with no control over the recordings nor their distribution. Blatantly intrusive and clearly wrong but with no support from the authorities these instances will continue to multiply. 

 While the Anglo-Celtic commissioners, as usual, show all the vigour of a blancmange, our continental counterparts have at least levied a few fines on organisations and individuals for pointing their cameras in inappropriate directions.  

 The whole problem is exacerbated by the insouciance and complicity of other public authorities, which take an even more relaxed approach to unlawful CCTV recordings. Domestic CCTV should be limited in its field of vision to private areas but more often than not (unless you have a large house or a long drive) this can be difficult to manage – especially if the cameras are also capturing audio. Consequently domestic CCTV has become catnip to the police as an aid to investigations.  

 Police and law enforcement authorities have a tendency to play the liberty or death card (which seems a little unwise given the terminal deprivation of liberty that many police forces seem to have operated in recent times) but regulators have tended to back them – bar the odd enforcement about facial recognition technologies (a topic to which we will no doubt return). 

 If you hand over your recordings as a well-intentioned citizen, what do the police do with them? What if they discover another possible offence? One that you have committed? These appeals also encourage your friendly neighbourhood curtain twitching vigilantes. You know the ones: they are on the local nextdoor or street WhatsApp group complaining about bike theft. (If you do not know who that is in your street chat, it is probably you.) 

 These blogs are supposed to give 'actionable insights' so here is mine. Stop it.  

 More seriously, here are some considerations for an anti-snoopers’ charter: 

•  First take your purpose. Security and crime prevention used to be the dominant justification for installing CCTV systems but convenience now dominates the field. Is it proportionate to install a smart doorbell to record anyone at the door which you are likely to open twenty seconds later? 
•  Next, retention. Storage is cheap but fines for over-retention are not. We recommend 30 days – one area on which we can agree with our esteemed friends in the police service - but the proof of this pudding is in the implementation [surely eating? Ed.]. 
•  Suppliers. Even if you trust the cops and yourself, what about the people who run your system and/or hold the data? Make sure you know and can justify what else they do with those recordings nestling in the cloud, recordings for which you are responsible – as the charmless Amazon are quick to point out. 
•  Last but not least, international transfers. Securys has run a series of webinars on the sensitivities and challenges around international data transfers (next one coming up on 29th September, in fact – yes, that is a plug: here is a link to register) so if you can read this you no longer have any excuses for letting the NSA nose around your garden. 

 As for dashcams and body worn cameras… we may have to return to that when no one is looking. 

Knock knock
Who’s there?
Isabel
Isabel who?
Is a bell necessary when you have a motion-sensitive camera tracking me?