The New Zealand government has today released privacy guidelines on the use of CCTV:
Commissioner Marie Shroff said the use of CCTV was proliferating, both in New Zealand and overseas.
"It seems that everywhere you look, someone has a camera trained on you.
"This raises questions such as what exactly the images are being used for, how secure they are from misuse or unauthorised viewing, whether the cameras are unnecessarily intrusive, and so on."
Ms Shroff said there was very little advice available to business and government, and the new guidelines would go some way to "filling that gap".
"CCTV has an important role to play in detecting and prosecuting crime, and even deterring some types of crime. But this does not need to be at the expense of privacy."
Spot on.
You can find the guidelines online, here. It sets out advice on deciding whether CCTV is needed, proper system planning, technology selection and advice on the positioning of cameras, and, crucially, making people aware that CCTV is operating, that the images captured are retained, and giving people access to images of them.
Big Brother Watch has a simple plea for the UK government - let's follow the Kiwi example please.
By Alex Deane
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