|
Lies, half truths, exaggeration and other thoughts on ‘in cab’ CCTV
By
Wayne Casey
The views expressed here are not those of the National Taxi Association
I write the day before the second reading of a backbencher’s bill in the House of Commons proposing compulsory CCTV in all Licensed Taxis and Private Hire vehicles in England and Wales.
MP for Bedford, Richard Fuller, brought the bill and made noises last year after the murder of his constituent Mehar Dhariwal, Mr Dhariwal died a week after being attacked in his cab.
The right honourable gentleman certainly has a point in respect of the effectiveness of CCTV, in parliament he stated “A US study recently compared the effect of measures such as CCTV and barriers between the driver and passengers. It found that only one method contributed to a significant reduction in crimes against drivers, and that was CCTV. “
Indeed, reports from Sheffield from back in 2007 suggested it led to major reductions in the number of attacks and incidents involving taxi drivers.
Yet despite the many positive aspects of CCTV and the deterrence it appears to bring, a number of drivers have come out vociferously against the systems.
Oxford is one obvious example, where after agreeing to CCTV, the taxi trade changed their minds and went against it. This was much to the embarrassment of a former trade representative who was quoted as saying “The drivers don’t seem to know what they want. They need to make up their mind.” The taxi trade then proceeded to back the private hire trade in calls against it. The Oxford mail reported 100 drivers signing a petition, a driver was quoted as saying;
“To me it is an invasion of my, my family’s and my customers’ privacy and our safety.” It is difficult to see how CCTV is a danger to the drivers safety, unless of course it is so badly fitted it falls off the roof and onto the drivers head.
I also suppose if a minicab is illegally plying for hire, in car CCTV will give the authorities easy evidence – but only a cynic would suggest that was a reason why elements of the private hire trade are against it. After all, to some “it is an invasion of my, my family’s and my customers’ privacy and our safety.”
It was broadly the same situation in Southampton, where the council were subject to an enforcement notice from the Information Commissioners Office, they appealed the notice and subsequently lost the appeal, although this was only in respect of the audio aspect of the recordings – I might add that Southampton Council were the ‘data controller’, but more about that later.
Interestingly within a few months of CCTV being fitted to licensed vehicles in Southampton a driver, Elyas Haidari, driving a car with a camera was caught swearing at three terrified pensioners and telling one: 'You die tonight’. Nice bloke no doubt, but there is also little doubt the audio evidence played a significant role in his license being quite rightly revoked.
Similar opposition to camera schemes have emerged in Sheffield – where it would appear, like Southampton, the private hire and hackney carriage trades have united against the introduction of cameras.
It is with no sense of irony that I point out the following.
In 2009 calls were made in Rushmoor for in cab CCTV after a series of attacks on taxi drivers.
Back in 2010, Judge Thomas Corrie stated after a trial where a minicab driver was badly beaten; “It was imperative employees of private hire firms were protected.”
In February 2012, calls were made in Watford for CCTV after a driver was attacked. Similarly, early this year calls were made for CCTV in Barrow in Furness after another driver was beaten, these go alongside calls from Hinckley, Epping Forest, Nottingham, Coventry and Rossendale.
I could go on but the pattern is broadly the same, each time there’s an assault, there’s a call for greater security. The call has become almost a knee jerk response. The irony comes when a council decides to do something about it, because then a brigade of people emerges who don’t want it, they bring out a barrel load of reasons why it shouldn’t be introduced.
Infringement of the privacy of passengers is very often top of the list. This is usually followed by use of the term ‘big brother’ despite the fact the person using it doesn’t know who or what Winston Smith actually is. Personally speaking, I don’t really want become involved in any deep and meaningful conversations with passengers, for the most part the majority of my customers look like Jeremy Kyle rejects. Indeed, if you are the type of a cabbie who likes talking with passengers, then I suggest you look into their glazed expressions if you use words of more than one syllable. Passengers don’t listen and are on the whole not interested in anything a cab driver says.
A certain cynical school of thought believes a camel is actually a horse designed by committee. To this end, leaving a council to design rules for taxi CCTV is more or less bordering on the stupid, you may as well ask a class of primary school children, at least the pictures will come with rockets and purple dinosaurs.
Not to be too blunt about it, you have a team of people who know nothing about taxis, working together on an issue they have no true idea about, with the goal of coming to a sensible and practical solution. To be perfectly honest, given all the possible outcomes, they’d be far better off given the task of working out this week’s Euromillions jackpot, at least they’d stand a chance of covering the authorities budget deficit.
Before you write off the above paragraph as the ranting of a poor deluded fool, I suggest you look at the fines issued to local authorities by the ICO for the misuse of data. Last month alone North East Lincolnshire Council were fined £80,000 after the loss of an unencrypted memory device containing personal data and sensitive personal data relating to 286 children.
All a council really need do is insist any system fitted complies with ICO regulations and insist each proprietor becomes the data controller. What I’m talking about is ‘light touch’ regulation. I cannot see the sense in a council becoming involved in the vagaries of data protection and taxis.
The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is the official regulator for all matters relating to the use of personal data.
The ICO defines a "data controller" as the body which has legal responsibility under the Data Protection Act (DPA) 1998 for all matters concerning the use of personal data. For the purpose of the installation and operation of in-vehicle CCTV, the "data controller" is the specified company, organisation or individual which has decided to have CCTV installed. The data controller has the final decision on how the images are stored and used and determines in what circumstances the images should be disclosed.
Notification is the process by which a data controller informs the ICO of certain details about their processing of personal information. These details are used to make an entry in the public register of data controllers.
This means that any specified company, organisation or individual vehicle owner who has a CCTV system installed in a licensed vehicle must register with the ICO (Notification) and obtain documented evidence of that registration.
The Notification requires renewal on an annual basis, and payment of the appropriate fee.
The images and data collected by the CCTV are the direct responsibility of the data controller. The data controller can also advise if they believe audio recording are necessary for the job in hand.
To put this quite simply, there is little need for a local authority to get too ‘hands on’ because the data controller answers to a higher authority, namely the ICO who can impose massive fines for the misuse of data. In effect, all the council need do is request a copy of the documented evidence of registration.
Some local authorities insist on camera systems that are quite expensive, the reported cost of the camera system in Southampton for example was a reported £700 (each). This is an easy mistake to make if you’re a local authority and par for the course when you’re not the one paying.
Other local authorities bring in rules and regulations that take the cheapest systems out of the grasp of drivers. Regulation for the sake of regulation, all done in the hope the camera system and data is protected from abuse by the very drivers the camera system is designed and there to protect, ironically the same drivers that are data controllers and therefore have a lawful duty to protect the data in the first place.
It seems to me that a lot of this has very little to do with the infringement of privacy, big brother or anything else, it’s more to do with the cost of camera equipment. On eBay or through Amazon a proprietor can purchase a selection of CCTV for well under £100 – the point seems to be – those who license many of us, don’t want us doing that.
_________________
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin
|
Login
Register
FAQ
