Pushing back against privacy invasions
Arguments for a more invasive policy around security cameras don’t add up
Hamilton City Council recently discussed the issue of allowing private citizens to aim security cameras on public property, primarily the sidewalks and streets in front of their properties. A city bylaw currently restricts the aim of such cameras to the property of the owner. Unfortunately, many councillors support a bylaw revision, and a large majority approved a motion calling for further study.
Councillor Sam Merulla, according to CBC reporting, made two statements in favour of revision. First, people are already recorded in public places. Secondly, such footage would aid police in solving crimes. These are facile arguments. Even so, he is an influential councillor and we who oppose changes to the bylaw must contend with his points.
Regarding the first argument: there is a grave difference between city officials recording me in Gore Park, as an example, and a neighbour recording me walking past their house every day. We submit to surveillance by our legitimately elected government through our implicit social contract: the citizenry waives certain rights to absolute freedom — such as freedom from surveillance — because we have agreed that there is a greater public good which comes from this infringement.
However, what makes that social contract function is the fact that recorded material is collected in a manner that is legally transparent. This means there are strict rules on how the information may be used, who may use it, and for what length of time it may be stored. It must also be secured so that unauthorized parties may not access it. These are the robust privacy mechanisms which ensure that, while we give up some rights by submitting to the recording of our movements, we balance freedom and safety as effectively as possible.
Allowing private citizens to systematically record publicly-owned space is an entirely different matter. I, nor anyone else, cannot possibly enter into a similar implicit or explicit social contract with every property owner who wishes to record public space.
It is also not feasible to regulate the use of the recorded material and guarantee the safeguards that we demand when we are recorded by publicly-owned cameras. For how long will someone keep their footage? To what use will they put it? For council to legally sanction potentially damaging activity with no plausible method of regulating it would be irresponsible.
Councillor Merulla’s second point contends that private recordings of public spaces would help solve crime. This is likely true. But there are any number of surveillance measures the police could take which would help solve or even deter crime. We do not accept many of them because they would be severe infringements on individual rights.
To take another example which has raised controversy in Hamilton, we can look at police carding. It has been restricted in Ontario since the beginning of 2017. No doubt carding can, and likely has, helped solve crime; but it is an imposition on people in public space and, more importantly, is open to arbitrary action and abuse, hence increasing restrictions on its use.
At least in the case of carding the action is taken by public officials and there is some recourse to hold the authorities accountable. We have witnessed this process in the case of Councillor Matthew Green’s complaint about his own experience with such police methods. Allowing private citizens to record public space is to create similar opportunities for abuse of privacy without any plausible recourse, since it is not feasible for the city to monitor the use and storage of all the footage that may be collected under a revised bylaw.
Unfortunately, our council seems to lean toward any level of privacy, even from the actions of other private citizens. However, this situation has only developed because of apathetic responses from elected officials and the public at large.
Hopefully, when the study on this matter is complete both it and council’s subsequent decision will reflect the deep concern about this matter expressed by Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner.