- VANCOUVER (CP) - RCMP ran
afoul of federal privacy laws when they set up a surveillance camera on
a Kelowna, B.C., street, says Canada's privacy commissioner. In a report
released Thursday that could have national implications, George Radwanski
said the so-called crime camera in downtown Kelowna contravenes federal
law.
But RCMP in Kelowna said Thursday they will continue to use the camera.
The force has referred the privacy commissioner's ruling to the Justice
Department.
The area where the $22,000 camera was mounted was marked with 11 signs
informing people the area was monitored by video surveillance for law enforcement
purposes.
The force stopped the continuous recording but continued to monitor the
camera day and night.
The video recording kicks in when there is suspicious activity.
But the federal privacy watchdog also suggested that simply ceasing the
24-hour recording and continuing the 24-hour surveillance could still contravene
the spirit, if not the letter, of the law.
He said there seems to be a growing interest in using video surveillance
by police forces across Canada.
It was B.C. Privacy Commissioner David Loukidelis who complained to Radwanski.
"One thing that happens with these cameras is they tend to displace
crime, they don't reduce it," he said.
In 1992, the Quebec privacy commissioner found that the city of Sherbrooke
contravened that province's privacy laws by videotaping citizens' activities.
"If we cannot walk or drive down a street without being systematically
monitored by the cameras of the state, our lives and our society will be
irretrievably altered," Radwanki wrote.
"The Orwellian idea that 'Big Brother is watching' will have become
no longer apocryphal, but a literal and permanent daily reality,"
Radwanski wrote in his seven-page decision.
The Vancouver police department has proposed setting up 23 cameras in the
city's crime-ridden downtown eastside. London, Toronto and Winnipeg are
considering them as well.
Only three complaints have been lodged with Kelowna city hall, which bought
the camera and pledged funding for more.
The city says 80 per cent of residents support the surveillance cameras,
"or safety cameras, as I like to call them," said Mayor Walter
Gray.
The average person is caught on videotape up to a dozen times a day, experts
say.
There likely is a public perception in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks
that surveillance cameras would somehow make society safer, Radwanski wrote.
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