Green light for TTC's 11,000 cameras

$21 million network of video 'eyes' justified for safety of riders, privacy czar rules

Kerry Gillespie
Queen's Park Bureau

Surveillance cameras make TTC riders feel safer and the plan to dramatically expand their numbers is okay with Ann Cavoukian, Ontario's privacy commissioner.

Installing 11,000 cameras on buses, streetcars, subway cars and in stations complies with privacy standards, Cavoukian said yesterday when she released the results of her investigation.

But the TTC must make some changes to ensure the network of seeing eyes is used only for legitimate purposes and never for voyeurism, as has happened in other cities, she said.

Cavoukian urged that the TTC:

• Delete video data after three days unless it's needed for a police investigation.
• Conduct annual audits to make sure privacy rules are followed.
• Test a privacy-enhancing technology, under development at University of Toronto, that automatically encrypts people's images.

The recommendations are meant to balance the legitimate needs for transit system safety and passenger privacy, Cavoukian stated.

TTC chair Adam Giambrone endorsed her findings and said his staff will be coming back with a plan for implementing them.

Privacy International, the London-based organization whose complaint trigged Cavoukian's investigation, was less pleased.

"It is clear ... the Commissioner has given up the ghost of privacy and become resigned to the inevitability of video surveillance technology," the group said on its website.

The group argues there is no public-interest justification for the $21 million security system.

The TTC now has cameras operating in all stations and 300 buses. By 2011, there will be more than 11,000 blanketing the system.

Privacy International should worry less about Toronto and more about the 4.2 million cameras in its own backyard, Cavoukian said.

In London, as in New York and Washington, the video feed is monitored live by an operator who can move the camera as needed.

The TTC's cameras are fixed in one position, and while ticket-takers have monitors in their booths, there is no one dedicated to watching the screen full-time, Giambrone said.

U.K. camera operators "have entertained themselves by zooming in on certain physical attributes of young women," Cavoukian noted.

She is backing the U of T research into a video surveillance system that would automatically encrypt, or blur, the faces of individuals unless a crime is committed and the visual details are needed.

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