Science Blog

Latest entry

CCTV Surveillance - The Real Issue

Jeff Corkill, Edith Cowan University
26 March 2009

Jeff Corkill is a lecturer in intelligence and security and Postgraduate and Offshore Program Coordinator at Edith Cowan University in Perth.

The events on Sunday at Sydney airport have reignited the debate on airport security. In today’s West Australian the issue of CCTV and its importance to the successful investigation and any subsequent prosecution of the offenders has been called into question. The concern is the difficulty created by different systems and varied responsibilities of security stakeholders within Sydney Airport and the problems of acquiring evidence. The focus is on evidence that may be obtained from the system in the post incident environment. Of course the use of CCTV to generate evidence in a post incident environment is wholly appropriate however the question that needs to be asked is how was the CCTV system employed prior to, during and immediately after the incident? Quality CCTV surveillance requires appropriately trained operators who when informed with adequate intelligence and focused with appropriate operational objectives maintain situational awareness and have the cameras pointed in the right place at the right time. If the debate is allowed to be dominated by the issues of systems interoperability, recording mediums etc we will not solve the real surveillance problem. Good surveillance is carried out by well trained operators who understand what surveillance is. The CCTV system is simply a tool which enables them to carry out the task of surveillance.

In recent years the efficacy of CCTV as a crime deterrent, more particularly its effect on the rate of crime occurring in public space environments has been seriously questioned. Consider criticisms by Wheeler in his review of security. Yet in the aftermath of the London subway bombings CCTV was singled out as having played a critical role in the rapid identification of the bombers, and in Australia as a result political interest in the use of CCTV as a security panacea was raised significantly. CCTV is often seen as the solution of all manner of security concerns, the emphasis being CCTV not surveillance. It could be argued that the security policy makers and managers have been to some extent seduced by CCTV technology. The obsession with technology has seen a shift in focus from operator control of the technology to conduct surveillance to one of smart surveillance where the operator to some extent becomes redundant.

Large scale modern CCTV surveillance systems are expensive to establish and in order to achieve an appropriate return on investment it is critical that the system is able to achieve the operational objectives of the owner. Achieving those operational objectives is in fact heavily dependant on the quality of the CCTV operators and their abilities to make appropriate timely decisions. There are a variety of factors that will be likely to have a direct influence on the ability of the operator to make those effective decisions and they include:

- Experience
- Observation skills
- Intelligence
- Commitment
- Vigilance
- Situational awareness
- Technical proficiency
- Target awareness
- Training

Not all operators require the highest levels of professional surveillance judgement as the requirement will be determined by the surveillance or operational objectives of the system owners. Not all environments though require active CCTV surveillance. Those environments requiring active surveillance and needing operators who demonstrate high levels of professional surveillance judgement will include areas in which community safety is at risk from either terrorism or violent crime such as airports, venues of mass gatherings, mass transit systems and certain public environments.
So we return to the original question how was the CCTV system employed prior to, during and immediately after the incident? Whilst post incident evidence is great I would argue that what is really needed is well trained operators supported with appropriate intelligence looking in the right place at the right time detecting potential incidents before or as they occur enabling appropriate response and allocation of resources. This may go some way to reducing the likelihood of the events on Sunday reoccurring in the future.

-------------

Comment

Archive

If you are a scientist and wish to contribute to this Science Blog, please contact the AusSMC.
Comments received are moderated by the AusSMC and placement cannot be guaranteed.

The opinions expressed in this Science Blog are those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent the views of the Australian Science Media Centre.