British Columbia Civil Liberties Association NEWSFLASH! Video Surveillance in Public Places

Position paper arguing against the initiation of video surveillance (closed circuit television / CCTV) in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. It argues that the Vancouver Police Department's goals of crime prevention; more accurate court convictions; and community development will not be met and that the benefits of CCTV would never justify the infringement on personal privacy that CCTV involves. Instead of crime reduction, the DTES would likely see population displacement. There are major problems with using video to identify suspects and match other police data to video images. CCTV is also very expensive for taxpayers, and the level of crime in Vancouver does not warrant such spending.