First set of police CCTV cameras going up in Waterloo next month

CTV’s Spencer Turcotte explains how police plan to use dozens of closed-circuit cameras in the City of Waterloo.

A new tool meant to help solve crimes, such as gun and gang violence, in Waterloo Region will soon be in place.

The first set of police Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras are expected go up in the City of Waterloo by the third week of January.

“We have our first [Memorandum of Understanding] signed with the City of Waterloo. We are also working with the Region of Waterloo as the poles are also ownership of the Region of Waterloo,” said Deputy Chief Jen Davis with the Waterloo Regional Police Service.

There will eventually be 52 cameras installed across the region’s seven municipalities.

As for exact locations, that will be made public on the police service’s website once they’re up.

The service will be responsible for owning, installing, operating and maintaining the cameras. They secured $100,000 in funding from the Ministry of the Solicitor General, which was matched in the WRPS budget, for a total of $200,000 to help roll out the multi-phase program.

“The first [phase] is looking at new infrastructure, new camera locations. Then the second one will be working with the various municipalities on the ability for us to access existing infrastructure,” said Davis.

That could include Grand River Transit, schools and private businesses.

Signs will be posted in areas with CCTV cameras, as was done during St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in the university district.

Police held public information sessions on the cameras in mid-November, but not everyone is sold on the idea, including privacy and surveillance expert Claudiu Popa.

“That kind of pattern of life tracking doesn’t sit well with people – identifying their whereabouts,” said Popa, who is also the co-founder of KnowledgeFlow Cybersafety Foundation. “We’ve seen these types of CCTV surveillance systems in the States being installed in major cities where there’s been pushback and they’ve been removed as a result.”

Police said the cameras will not be monitored live and would be accessed for the purpose of an investigation. Any footage not used in an investigation would be deleted after 30 days.

“There’s really little difference between being recorded and being watched in real time,” said Popa. “There are backups and archival systems that ensure the data can be retrieved after the fact.”

Facial recognition capabilities will be turned off, but cameras will include automated licence plate readers.

“Here in Canada, we’ve got [licence plates] on the front and rear. It’s a lot easier to very precisely place an individual at a specific location all the way back to the beginning of the program,” Popa said.

He added transparency is the key to get the community on board.

“I can’t overstate enough how important it is for people to be considered on the same team as law enforcement because that’s the way for the public to understand that no one is looking to infringe upon their personal, human rights, of which privacy is one,” said Popa.

Given police have engaged with the Information and Privacy Commissioner’s office, they maintain transparency is their goal and believe they are on the right track.