Negative images

With the rise in fears over civil liberties, the use of CCTV cameras in licensed premises has come under new regulations. Phil Mellows reports

Police in Sunderland last month blocked a £2m leisure development because the owner was £40,000 short of what they thought it should be spending on security cameras (See Leisure development on hold over CCTV row (16 November 2001)for full details).

It was yet another example of the extra control that the authorities are exerting over licensed premises - and yet another example of the increasingly tangled web of red tape that licensees are having to negotiate.

Typically, this particular piece of red tape is pulling the trade in opposite directions. Since the end of October, new regulations have come into force to control the use of surveillance equipment such as CCTV.

In most towns and cities, CCTV cameras have become a central part of policing.

Police may insist on high street pubs installing equipment not merely for the protection of the licensee and his or her premises, but to give them a more complete coverage of potential trouble-spots.

As surveillance has grown, so, understandably, have worries about civil liberties, and CCTV is a special area of attention in the 1998 Data Protection Act, the law which recently came into force. (See Just for the record (11 October 2001)for a break-down of the details of the Act).

It is an ambitious piece of legislation requiring the registration of all CCTV systems. Weeks into it, independent expert Robyn Sones estimated that 95 per cent of systems remain unregistered - and technically illegal.

According to Robyn, there are some disturbing implications. This isn't just a matter of the £5,000 fine a licensee faces for breaking the law.

If a crime is committed on pub premises and the suspect is defended on the grounds that CCTV evidence is inadmissible because the system does not conform to the law, a victim of the crime may take civil proceedings against the licensee - and the potential fine is unlimited.

"This is an angle that hasn't been widely appreciated," said Robyn. "If a pub customer gets stabbed in view of a camera and the attacker gets away with it because the system is illegal, the victim might be advised to take the publican to court."

As well as registering any CCTV system used installed in a public area there are certain legal obligations imposed on the person, or people, in whose name the system is registered. You must, for instance:

• Provide documentation on what you need the system for. If it is simply down as protection against vandalism, violence and theft, you cannot use it for anything else.
• Make sure nobody can see the images unless they are registered users. If you have a VDU screen behind the bar, or in view of staff, you are almost certainly breaking the law.
• Limit the range of the cameras, as far as possible, to the areas you want to cover. You need to consider specially sensitive things that might accidentally be picked up. For instance, as the Government's guidelines point out, "individuals sunbathing in their back gardens may have a greater expectation of privacy than individuals mowing the lawn of their front garden". No doubt there are plenty of websites out there for people who are turned on by pictures of people mowing the lawn, but you get the idea.
• Put up signs to tell people they are on camera. These need to say why you are doing it and give contact details of the operator.
• Maintain the quality of the equipment. Faults must be logged. This includes the tapes you use. Under the law a tape cannot be used more than 13 times to avoid deterioration. Each tape must have a serial number and its use recorded.
• Only keep the images for as long as you reasonably might need them. The guidelines are quite specific on this as far as pubs are concerned: "publicans may need to keep recorded images for no longer than seven days because they will soon be aware of any incident, such as a fight occurring on their premises".
• Make the image available to anyone who believes they have been caught on one of your cameras - unless this might prejudice any attempt to foil a crime or prosecute a suspect. You can charge a fee for this. If your film of them is likely to cause them damage or distress they can instruct you to stop processing the image. For example, if someone is caught snogging someone they shouldn't in the car park, you can't broadcast it in the pub.

All this requires training any staff who are involved in operating the equipment and in fully documenting your aims and procedures.

According to Robyn, if you are going to do this properly you will need no fewer than 20 different forms, all specific to your pub - 18 are compulsory under law and two are to protect yourself by showing you have trained staff.

Robyn runs a website - www.cctv-information.co.uk - funded by some of the leading companies in the field which aims to help businesses get legal. Through it you can buy a CD-ROM which takes you through the law and provides templates for the documentation you need for £79, or, for £196, you can get a self-assessment pack which includes the cost of registering your system, getting an expert to design your forms and signs - which must all be site specific - and manage the legal requirements.

Despite the demands of the law, business at the CCTV companies is brisk. David Stafford at Security Vision was confident that awareness of the Data Protection Act is growing fast.

"The licensed trade is a buoyant sector for us at the moment," he said. "Both local authorities and police forces are encouraging pubs and bars to have it because it gives them a wider coverage of an area."

Companies such as Security Vision will start by giving you a free survey of your premises and discuss with you what you want to achieve in order to determine the equipment you will need and where to position the cameras and so on.

They can also advise you about the law. As Robyn says: "If your CCTV is illegal it might as well be switched off."

• The Government's fairly lucid guidelines on the law can be found at www.dataprotection.gov.uk.
• For a self-assessment pack or general information about CCTV systems go to www.cctv-information.co.uk or email Robyn Sones direct at robyn@cctv-information.co.uk.