CCTV ... if you can't be trusted then take them down

Despite reassurances from Westminster and other councils they still cannot behave themselves with CCTV being used to spy in peoples' windows.

Not only are the cameras inadequately signed (why tell motorists that they could be captured on CCTV ... it would only reduce the revenue) thereby not providing any deterrent, it is now revealed that they are being used to look in windows.

PARKING CCTV ‘SNOOPED IN ON BEDROOM’

Jamie Welham

West End Extra

27th June

Fury as council cameras are caught looking into private homeA CCTV camera set up to catch parking cheats has been caught snooping on a Bayswater bedroom. The West End Extra has seen video footage from one of Westminster Council’s spy cameras zooming into a luxury flat in Moscow Road.

The council had assured residents that the rotating street cameras, manned by operators in the council’s CCTV control centre in Lisson Grove, would automatically blur out when passing over residents’ rooms. But the video, released following a Freedom of Information request, shows they are not. More ...

Find out if your council is doing the same by submitting the following:

Dear Sir / Madam

Information Request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000

Please provide a list of ALL the CCTV camera locations (used for moving traffic or parking contravention monitoring) across the borough and also provide the following:

(i) the type of equipment used (camera and recording device) in each instance

(ii) the date the camera was installed

(iii) whether each individual camera has been fitted with a privacy zone

(iv) details of whether the privacy zones are fitted to each camera as a matter of standard installation procedure and any protocols and guidelines for installation / use / monitoring of CCTV cameras.

Yours faithfully,