Surveillance Resources and Information

SETTING up cameras for a neighbourhood-watch scheme or even a domestic CCTV security network used to involve a great deal of wrestling with spaghetti-like wiring. Not any more. Thanks to a merger of cellphone technology with digital cameras, CCTV is going wireless.

Cellphone maker Nokia is this month launching a wireless surveillance camera that can snap a high-resolution picture and send it to a picture-messaging phone or PC when prompted by a text message. It sounds harmless enough. But data protection experts say that the sudden proliferation of wireless surveillance cameras may put some people on the wrong side of the law, and that hackers could intercept the pictures. In addition, civil liberties groups are concerned that people will now be able to hide intrusive wireless surveillance cameras just about anywhere.

A wireless surveillance camera can be bolted unobtrusively to a wall or sat on a stand, watching and waiting until someone in its field of view moves. Alternatively, it can be triggered by sending it a text message from anywhere in the world. The wireless surveillance camera then snaps a picture and sends it to a picture-messaging phone or email address. Infrared imaging lets the wireless surveillance camera see in the dark, and a microphone can even eavesdrop on speech. The wireless surveillance camera works on all the GSM frequency bands and can be used in most countries around the world.

Unlike the grainy pictures taken by today's picture phones, the L300 Nokia Observation Camera snaps high-resolution images of 640 by 480 pixels. This means it rates as a surveillance system under British and European law, so people buying one will have to register with the data protection authorities as a CCTV user, says Britain's Office of the Information Commissioner.

"If this wireless surveillance camera captures an identifiable image, it will be classed as a CCTV device," says the office's compliance manager Fay Spencer. "Anyone who is not exempt will have to register as a CCTV user," she says. Under the act, anyone can ask a registered user to see what they have recorded.

Watching your car in your drive or on the street outside your home would be exempt. But watching other people, their homes or cars would not. "The guiding principle is transparency and fairness, telling people how the wireless surveillance camera is being used and why. That's why shops have notices warning customers that they are on camera," says Spencer.

"So far CCTV has been used mainly by governments and companies. They are controlled by the data protection laws and have to respect public opinion. But with devices like this wireless surveillance camera, anyone will be able to put a camera wherever they like," says Ian Brown, director of the pressure group the Foundation for Information Policy Research. "The security had better be good. We don't want hackers getting the pictures. This is going to become one of the new big issues and we need to open it up for public debate."