Life through a CCTV lens, it's all about image!

The fact that the vehicles are unmarked, and indeed carry no signage to comply with the Data Protection Act, shouldn't really provide any great surprises, and yet Google aren't really alone when it comes to having a quick snoop up the average side street.

Not for the first time in recent weeks, I've spotted a white unremarkable unmarked van, cruising past my door, with nothing to arouse suspicion other than the fact that each corner of the roof is embellished with an outwardly pointing CCTV bullet camera.

Rumour has it, the vehicles (of which there are many) are being deployed by the local councils in order to identify untaxed vehicles, using a database supplied by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA), which is compared against the images of vehicle number plates snapped by the passing van.

Now why would they want to cruise the streets of old London Town looking for untaxed vehicles.

The answer of course is clamping and penalty charges for release; so acting as agents for the DVLA, in the words of Arfur Daley they're on to a nice little earner.

And who said there's not much profit left in video surveillance ...?

Historically, it's long been accepted that if Video Surveillance is correctly applied, it should be as beneficial in terms of exonerating the innocent, as it can be at identifying the guilty. The problem of course is that very often there can be a time delay between a crime being reported, and the investigating officers getting to locate the presence of CCTV, and in so doing, recover whatever recordings are available.

Here in the U.K., in most (but not all) situations, an individual that is captured on a security camera system, does have the right to request access to their 'recorded data', so in terms of gaining access to evidential recordings, in theory it should be fairly straightforward.

The problem appears to be with the San Francisco scenario, that whilst Public Defenders are prevented from accessing recordings that could assist their clients in proving their innocence, the law enforcement community are equally disadvantaged by what is an extremely short, and patently almost worthless 7 day retention period.

The U.K.'s Data Protection Act does make provision for recordings to be retained as long as is thought appropriate in a given situation, and generally speaking that has resulted in 31 days becoming the norm for Public Space surveillance systems. If the truth be told, there are situations where a longer period could easily be justified, but then the system operators would probably say that the increased cost of extended storage would generally not be outweighed, by the benefits to the data subject.

If it were simply a case of establishing innocence or guilt, then that could in theory be distilled down into a cost related equation, but where preservation of human life is increasingly a valid and predictable objective, one could be forgiven for asking whether it's time to invest a bit more considered thought, about what is such a vital constituent.