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| Sheffield Council set to rule on CCTV http://www.taxi-driver.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=20122 |
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| Author: | captain cab [ Wed Aug 29, 2012 8:31 am ] |
| Post subject: | Sheffield Council set to rule on CCTV |
Council set to rule on CCTV cameras in taxis in ‘coming weeks’ No decisions have been made yet about whether to introduce CCTV cameras into taxis and private hire cars in Sheffield. Last month Sheffield City Council’s Licensing Committee announced it was reviewing whether to make the cameras mandatory following a serious attack on a Sheffield taxi driver. City Taxis’ driver Arshad Mahmood lost his eye after being hit in the face with a glass bottle by a passenger who had been told he wasn’t allowed to drink alcohol in the cab. Back in 2007 the council invested £7,000 in fitting CCTV cameras into 30 taxis as part of a pilot project. It was claimed the measure cut the number of incidents drivers faced from one for every seven journeys to one incident for every 100. However the council was not convinced cameras should become compulsory. If the Licensing Committee now changes its policy and makes them mandatory it is not clear who will pay for their installation. Drivers and taxi companies may be expected to pay for the cameras as part of the condition of their license, or the council might pick up the cost, as it did in 2007. Back then the trial cost an average of £212 per taxi. However modern CCTV systems, specially designed for taxis, can retail at nearly three times as much. Even if the lower 2007 figure is used, this means a bill of £468,000, given there are 857 Hackney carriages licensed in the city and a further 1352 private hire vehicles. But some people are opposed to the idea of putting CCTV cameras in cabs in principle. Civil liberties campaigners have strong reservations about how the information recorded is stored and used. James Baker, campaigns manager for the Sheffield branch of the campaign group ‘NO2ID’, said: "Recording and storing everything we say or do in the back of a late night taxi sound like something a creepy stalker would do. Clearly most people would find this an invasion of their privacy." "Clearly only incidents of crime should be retained on any proposed system" he added. A council spokesman said: “Members will be making decisions on the way forward based on the information pulled together by officers in the coming weeks.” http://postcodegazette.com/news/9002375 ... town-hall/ |
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