Interviews

CCTV meet at Interpol

by Mark Rowe

Use of video surveillance by law enforcement and the private sector was the focus of a Group of Experts Meeting on video organised and hosted by INTERPOL within the framework of the EU-supported Rules, Expectations & Security through Privacy-Enhanced Convenient Technologies (RESPECT) project.

Some 35 people from 24 countries gathered in Lyon for the two-day (April 24 and 25) meeting at the international police body’s General Secretariat headquarters to discuss a range of issues relating to CCTV, including inter-operability between law enforcers, public and private sector systems, effectiveness, prospective developments and the balance between security needs and individuals’ rights.

With investigations into the Boston Marathon bombing again highlighting the importance of CCTV, particularly for suspect identification, existing practices and common challenges were also on the agenda.

Set up by INTERPOL’s Office of Legal Affairs, the meeting served as the foundation for the projects’ research on CCTV to identify operational needs and develop recommendations to strengthen security while respecting citizens’ fundamental rights.

Joël Sollier, INTERPOL’s General Counsel, said the results of the discussions would not only benefit the RESPECT project but global law enforcement which, through INTERPOL, would continue to provide input to policy-making before new European laws on the subject were finally agreed.

The meeting, chaired by RESPECT and SMART projects co-ordinator Professor Joe Cannataci, Chair in European Information Policy and Technology Law at the University of Groningen and Head of the Department of Information Policy & Governance at the University of Malta, also addressed the issue of CCTV integration into smart surveillance, the main focus of RESPECT’s ‘sister project’,  Scalable Measures for Automated Recognition Technologies (SMART).

The three-year RESPECT project, like the SMART project, is funded under the Security Work Programme within the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). INTERPOL is a full partner in both projects which are each being carried out by over 50 researchers organised within 20 teams from partners within 16 European Union states and Australia.

One of the goals of the RESPECT and SMART projects is to draft a model law which can be deployed across Europe and beyond. Feedback from INTERPOL after this meeting will help establish guidelines and standards which reflect law enforcement needs, as well as identifying appropriate safeguards.

According to INTERPOL the overall objective of the project is to modernise and improve the quality and efficiency of CCTV users’ working methods, including those of law enforcers while providing the balance with and improving respect for privacy and other rights of the citizens.

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