Yonge and Dundas Security Cameras Turned Off

Right. Let's allow the cops to monitor our every move so a few businesses can make a buck. Civil liberties mean a lot more to mean than HMV or Footlocker not losing any sales.

If you want to know why CCTV cameras are bad, its siple: there is very poor legislation for oversight on how the police use/dispose of video.

The only publication in Toronto that has dealt with this is Spacing. Here's their article on it:

http://spacing.ca/archives/32/

While I think that the use of CCTV surveillance does require commensurate policy-making, it is also not a simple issue of civil liberties versus commercial advantages. Everyday, people walk these streets on a daily basis. Furthermore, we need to differentiate between public and private spaces. If the purpose of these cameras is to protect citizens going about their daily lives in public spaces, what problem does a law-abiding citizen have besides having their principles offended?

It's hard to fathom that the Toronto Police have the resources to tag and catalog every instance of a face making an appearance in surveillance video, nor do they likely have the resources to keep track of a consistently growing stockpile of video with no evidence of criminal activity in it.

Still, debate is good. Look forward to hearing all sides of arguments for and against this; I'm just one person.

There was good debate about this a short while ago, on blogTO.

You do realize, Ryan, that your argument here is basically a small-scale version of what Bush, Cheney and co are using to justify their slow erosion of civil liberties in the US - they can wiretap phones, read email, detain people with no cause, ignore the law, etc etc, so that they can keep people "safe" from "terror."

Keeping the public under round-the-clock surveillance does not make me feel safer, it makes me feel like I'm living in a police state. Maybe you ought to brush up on your Orwell before you go championing the use of cameras on every streetcorner.

To each their own, I'd prefer it if would-be criminals thought twice before shooting up the highly populated streets, as is happening more and more in Toronto. I never championed the use of cameras on every street corner, nor do I think we're on our way to a dystopic Orwellian vision of Toronto. Orwell was more about surveillance in the home rather than surveillance in the public streets. I'd suggest you brush up on your Habermas.

Everyone hates a cop until they need one.

I think it's a bit of a jump from monitoring a public intersection to doing away with the Geneva Conventions.

One thing to realize is that very soon, less than five years most likely, it will be possible to automatically review very large amounts of recorded CCTV video and peg those videos with faces from a database, such as the electronic driver's license photo databases.

When this becomes practical, in just a few years, it will be possible to take every video ever made and run it through a system, tagging it with every person who appears on that video (and those people are themselves identified by SIN, address, name, etc.)

In other words, if you are of interest, Ryan C., the police will be able to check on your movements as far back as video is available. In 2050, they'll be able to note that you went to Sam the Record Man in 2007, assuming that video from 2007 has been saved (and there's no reason not to - storage halves in price every year). Anywhere the cameras are, your movements will be completely traceable, as far back as footage has been saved. This is not sci-fi - the technology already exists, it's just a little slow with current CPUs.

I feel a bit spooked having all of movements permanently on tape *and searchable*. That data will not be used to your benefit.

That why I oppose cameras of all sorts.

If these cameras are such a great deterrent, then why was there a shooting right in front of them on December 30th?

And if they do such a great job of keeping tabs on people, why has no-one been arrested in the 9 days since the shooting took place?

Speed limits and fines don't stop people from driving at outrageously dangerous speeds. Maybe we should do away with speed limits?

I think we need to think about WHY we 'need' the cameras in the first place? Is it to deter crime? Because if so, that certainly didn't work as evidenced by the hail of bullets at Sam the Record Man. The role of the police is to serve and to protect and to me, that means to prevent crime, not monitor it. Crime prevention begins with better relationship with communities, not by using security company policing.

I think we need to think about WHY we 'need' the cameras in the first place? Is it to deter crime? Because if so, that certainly didn't work as evidenced by the hail of bullets at Sam the Record Man. The role of the police is to serve and to protect and to me, that means to prevent crime, not monitor it. Crime prevention begins with better relationship with communities, not by using security company policing.

"I'm all for privacy and whatnot..."

Sincerity at it's best.

I'm the person that was interviewed by CityTV regarding my thoughts of the Toronto Police Services Board having cameras monitoring our streets. I'd like to make it clear that my opinion on the matter is not that of a business owner, because I'm not, but as a citizen of Toronto. I work a whisper's earshot from where an innocent young woman was gunned down while walking down Yonge St. on Boxing Day, in 2005. To refresh your memory, we had two other shooting incidents this past December. I'm in complete favour of these cameras being installed and monitoring our busy street corners. Studies have shown that areas that are under surveillance have a lower crime level. I'd like to be able to go to work and earn a living, then be able to go home without the threat of some trigger-happy idiot acting like he's in some remake of Al Capone's life and times.
We've got cameras in our restaurant and it was the benefit of our cameras that we were able to find out who stole from one of our customers while he left his property unattended. The culprit was caught and our customer had his property returned. So, YES, I'm in favour of surveillance. I've done nothing wrong and I've got nothing to hide, so why would I care if I'm being watched on a busy steet corner that has an unsafe history?
Tabitha