Arguments Against Video Surveillance

As the use of CCTV cameras increases across the globe, so does the debate over their numbers and motives. In a previous post, Arguments for Video Surveillance, we looked at four arguments for video surveillance. These arguments included peace of mind, loss prevention, crime deterrent, and crime solving.

But what about the other side of the fence? The ACLU has an entire Web site, You Are Being Watched, devoted to the “high costs of camera surveillance systems, both in terms of money and civil liberties,” and there are a large number of individuals and other groups out there that oppose “big brother” watching our every move.

So, what are some of the arguments against the use of CCTV surveillance systems?

1. Invasion of Privacy – This is the most common argument against surveillance systems. While video surveillance is more commonly accepted in public areas, this sentiment comes into play with the use of covert and hidden cameras in almost every case.
2. Mistrust – The use of security cameras in your home or business can make its occupants feel mistrusted. If your family members or employees are under constant surveillance, there is likely to be hostility and animosity in the air.
3. Not Proven Effective – Studies done in California and London have found that security cameras had little to no effect on reducing the crime rate. With an increase in the sheer number of cameras in many large cities, many replacing human security guards, this is a strong argument that will be the main target of many opposing groups.
4. Misuse and Abuse – The footage captured by CCTV cameras becomes susceptible to abuse and misuse by those who have access to it. For instance, the footage can be used to discriminate against people and for voyeurism. In the age of the internet, this is another huge deal, as can be seen by all of the “hilarious” YouTube videos out there. I doubt the subjects would find most of them as funny.

All of these reasons are valid arguments against CCTV surveillance. There are many cities and countries that have massive surveillance systems, and we will likely see a large increase in public monitoring in the near future, so the more the public knows about the industry and their rights, etc, the more everyone can prepare for when it happens in your little corner of the globe.

Do you have any additional arguments against the use of security camera systems? What are your thoughts? Will you fight them, or open your “public” life up willingly to being observed? Let us know – we’d love to hear from you.

Cyber Law in INDIA

Why Cyberlaw in India ? 

When Internet was developed, the founding fathers of Internet hardly had any inclination that Internet could transform itself into an all pervading revolution which could be misused for criminal activities and which required regulation. Today, there are many disturbing things happening in cyberspace. Due to the anonymous nature of the Internet, it is possible to engage into a variety of criminal activities with impunity and people with intelligence, have been grossly misusing this aspect of the Internet to perpetuate criminal activities in cyberspace. Hence the need for Cyberlaws in India.

What is the importance of Cyberlaw ? 
Cyberlaw is important because it touches almost all aspects of transactions and activities on and concerning the Internet, the World Wide Web and Cyberspace. Initially it may seem that Cyberlaws is a very technical field and that it does not have any bearing to most activities in Cyberspace. But the actual truth is that nothing could be further than the truth. Whether we realize it or not, every action and every reaction in Cyberspace has some legal and Cyber legal perspectives.

Does Cyberlaw concern me ? 
Yes, Cyberlaw does concern you. As the nature of Internet is changing and this new medium is being seen as the ultimate medium ever evolved in human history, every activity of yours in Cyberspace can and will have a Cyberlegal perspective. From the time you register your Domain Name, to the time you set up your web site, to the time you promote your website, to the time when you send and receive emails , to the time you conduct electronic commerce transactions on the said site, at every point of time, there are various Cyberlaw issues involved. You may not be bothered about these issues today because you may feel that they are very distant from you and that they do not have an impact on your Cyber activities. But sooner or later, you will have to tighten your belts and take note of Cyberlaw for your own benefit.

Cyberlaw Awareness program 
Are your electronic transactions legally binding and authentic? Are you verifying your customers' identities to prevent identity theft? Does your online terms and conditions have binding effect? Are you providing appropriate information and clear steps for forming and concluding your online transactions? How are you ensuring data protection and information security on your web site? Are you recognising the rights of your data subjects?

Transacting on the Internet has wide legal implications as it alters the conventional methods of doing business. To build enduring relationships with your online customers the legal issues of e-transactions need to be addressed from the onset.

This Awareness program will cover
the basics of Internet Security
basic information on Indian Cyber Law
Impact of technology aided crime
Indian IT Act on covering the legal aspects of all Online Activities
Types of Internet policies required for an Organization.
Minium hardware and software, security measures required in an organization to protect data

Cyber laws are meant to set the definite pattern, some rules and guidelines that defined certain business activities going on through internet legal and certain illegal and hence punishable . The IT Act 2000, the cyber law of India , gives the legal framework so that information is not denied legal effect, validity or enforceability, solely on the ground that it is in the form of electronic records.

One cannot regard government as complete failure in shielding numerous e-commerce activities on the firm basis of which this industry has got to its skies, but then the law cannot be regarded as free from ambiguities.

MMS porn case in which the CEO of bazee.com(an Ebay Company) was arrested for allegedly selling the MMS clips involving school children on its website is the most apt example in this reference. Other cases where the law becomes hazy in its stand includes the case where the newspaper Mid-Daily published the pictures of the Indian actor kissing her boyfriend at the Bombay nightspot and the arrest of Krishan Kumar for illegally using the internet account of Col. (Retd.) J.S. Bajwa.

The IT Act 2000 attempts to change outdated laws and provides ways to deal with cyber crimes. Let’s have an overview of the law where it takes a firm stand and has got successful in the reason for which it was framed.

1. The E-commerce industry carries out its business via transactions and communications done through electronic records . It thus becomes essential that such transactions be made legal . Keeping this point in the consideration, the IT Act 2000 empowers the government departments to accept filing, creating and retention of official documents in the digital format. The Act also puts forward the proposal for setting up the legal framework essential for the authentication and origin of electronic records / communications through digital signature.

2. The Act legalizes the e-mail and gives it the status of being valid form of carrying out communication in India. This implies that e-mails can be duly produced and approved in a court of law , thus can be a regarded as substantial document to carry out legal proceedings.

3. The act also talks about digital signatures and digital records . These have been also awarded the status of being legal and valid means that can form strong basis for launching litigation in a court of law. It invites the corporate companies in the business of being Certifying Authorities for issuing secure Digital Signatures Certificates.

4. The Act now allows Government to issue notification on the web thus heralding e-governance.

5. It eases the task of companies of the filing any form, application or document by laying down the guidelines to be submitted at any appropriate office, authority, body or agency owned or controlled by the government. This will help in saving costs, time and manpower for the corporates.

6. The act also provides statutory remedy to the coporates in case the crime against the accused for breaking into their computer systems or network and damaging and copying the data is proven. The remedy provided by the Act is in the form of monetary damages, not exceeding Rs. 1 crore($200,000).

7. Also the law sets up the Territorial Jurisdiction of the Adjudicating Officers for cyber crimes and the Cyber Regulations Appellate Tribunal.

8. The law has also laid guidelines for providing Internet Services on a license on a non-exclusive basis.

The IT Law 2000, though appears to be self sufficient, it takes mixed stand when it comes to many practical situations. It looses its certainty at many places like:

1. The law misses out completely the issue of Intellectual Property Rights, and makes no provisions whatsoever for copyrighting, trade marking or patenting of electronic information and data. The law even doesn’t talk of the rights and liabilities of domain name holders , the first step of entering into the e-commerce.
2. The law even stays silent over the regulation of electronic payments gateway and segregates the negotiable instruments from the applicability of the IT Act , which may have major effect on the growth of e-commerce in India . It leads to make the banking and financial sectors irresolute in their stands .
3. The act empowers the Deputy Superintendent of Police to look up into the investigations and filling of charge sheet when any case related to cyber law is called. This approach is likely to result in misuse in the context of Corporate India as companies have public offices which would come within the ambit of "public place" under the Act. As a result, companies will not be able to escape potential harassment at the hands of the DSP.
4. Internet is a borderless medium ; it spreads to every corner of the world where life is possible and hence is the cyber criminal. Then how come is it possible to feel relaxed and secured once this law is enforced in the nation??

Employment Law Versus Human Rights Law for CCTV Cameras

It comes as no surprise to many that the India has more CCTV cameras per person than anywhere else in the world; leading human rights lawyers to warn that their almost constant use in our everyday lives raises data protection and wider privacy concerns, since they can be used in an intrusive way.

But what are the limits? At the workplace, employers are permitted to monitor workers in so far as it is necessary and proportionate to the management's reasons. CCTV monitoring is often undertaken for security reasons and is thus widely viewed as reasonable. It follows that employees naturally inspire reassurance from their respective employers that they are using CCTV responsibly.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) published its first CCTV Data Protection Code of Practice in 2000 to help CCTV operators comply with the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) and follow good practice.

The Code of Practice: Monitoring at Work gives guidance on how to avoid employees calling in the lawyers over breaching the provisions of the DPA. The Code provides that before such monitoring is introduced, an impact assessment must be carried out to determine what (if any) monitoring is justified by the benefits of that monitoring. Under the DPA, any CCTV monitoring must normally be open and backed by fulfilling reasons.

The assessment should consider targeting the monitoring only at the areas of particular risk, confining it to areas where people's expectations of privacy would be low, using video and audio monitoring separately - cases where the use of both to be justified becomes rare. Its operation should only be where deemed necessary rather than continuous - although continuous monitoring may be justified where security is at risk. Finally, whether comparable benefits can be obtained by less intrusive methods and what adverse impact it may have on workers.

In making the assessment it is advisable for the employer to consult trade unions/employee representatives.

If the monitoring is introduced to enforce certain rules and standards, the employer must ensure that the workers are aware of and understand them.

According to one employment lawyer, the use of CCTV to monitor the actions of employees has potential implications in respect of the Data Protection Act and the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA). If the surveillance is excessive, the implications may vary depending on whether the employer is a public or private body or individual.

If the employer is a private organization or company, then direct reliance on HRA is not possible. Nevertheless, all contracts of employment contain an implied term that employers will not - without reasonable and proper cause - conduct themselves in a manner likely to destroy or seriously damage the relationship of trust between themselves and employees. Yet, it is doubtful that CCTV cameras in obvious places in the workplace would violate this implied term.

On the other hand, an employer in a public body has an obligation to respect workers right to private life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (as enacted by HRA). However, this right is a qualified right which means that it may be interfered with for a legitimate purpose in accordance with law and is necessary in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. The interference must be proportionate in achieving its aim. An example of disproportionate use may arguably be where cameras are put in toilets or changing rooms.

Ultimately, it should be borne in mind that despite the points outlined there is very little scope to impede employers making recordings. Placement and retention of footage must be in accordance with regulations under DPA. As this is a relatively recent development in the law, there are very few decided cases (the DPA does not apply to individuals' private or household purposes).

Assistance for employees comes from either expressing direct concerns to the employer which is the easiest way to resolve the situation or from a union if the worker is a member.

Any personal data collected must be stored securely. Also, regard should be had to the fact that anyone who is captured on CCTV will have a right of access to that footage under the DPA.

Capturing Crystal Clear Images With Megapixel Technology

Megapixel surveillance is not a new concept — its applications and benefits are starkly clear. What has changed are smarter cameras, taking advantage of the added pixels and a better understanding of illumination in real life. In the first of a two-part report, A&S examines how smarter megapixel cameras are getting; the second part looks at best practices for optimal performance.

The big picture for megapixel surveillance cameras looks bright, in the wake of the recession. HD and megapixel cameras are expected to make up nearly 30 percent of network camera shipments in 2011, according to IMS Research. By 2015, it is forecast that more than 60 percent of network cameras shipped will be of megapixel resolution.

The resolution increase has a noted effect on the whole surveillance system. While a 2.1-megapixel or 1,080p HD image is six times larger than a D1 image, the additional pixels require a bigger pipe to transmit more data. The infrastructure and storage costs for megapixel are well-documented, with ROI and TCO being used as arguments in favor of bigger pictures. The fate of megapixel is linked to the future of IP networks, with HD forecast to make up most high-resolution cameras compared to megapixel, according to IMS.

Megapixel surveillance requires careful planning, but the benefits of added resolution boost the accuracy of analytics. Edge devices take advantage of faster processors, resulting in smarter use of pixels. Analytics can help reduce bandwidth, as an event will trigger video streaming, rather than constantly sending the same still images over the network. A more distributed architecture puts less strain on networks and makes life easier.

Clarity is the main driver for megapixel. “At the end of the day, you're putting in a security system to protect life and provide evidence in a court of law,” said Stephen Moody, Security Development Manager for ViS Security Solutions, an integrator in Ireland.

Cracking the Code
H.264 is the de facto standard compression for megapixel cameras, due to its efficiency in crunching large data files into smaller ones for transmission and storage. As compression evolved from M-JPEG's stills to MPEG-4 and now to H.264, a variety of profiles yield differences in performance. With 17 profiles in all, three are the most common: baseline, main and high, said Sachin Khanna, PM for CCTV, Bosch Security Systems.

By profile, the baseline is appropriate for video conferencing; the main profile is good for broadcast video; and high profile is most applicable for HD broadcast video. “H.264 requires a fair amount of processing power for encoding and decoding; this may limit the camera's frame rate and dictate the NVR platform to achieve the desired performance,” said Rich Pineau, CTO of Oncam Global.

Most H.264 profiles stem from 2-D applications, with not all profiles being capable of integration. “Even if both cameras are H.264 and the manufacturers are partners, the system could still not work,” said Patrick Lim, Director of Sales and Marketing for Ademco Far East. “The I/O and output are hard to integrate. Some engineers say it's easy to plug and play — there's no such thing.”

Section 43 Of The Information Technology Act, 2000(amended in 2008) in INDIA

Section 43 Of The Information Technology Act, 2000(amended in 2008) in INDIA

Internet is a window to me. Well, it is a window to millions of users like me. This window brings in good inflow of knowledge, some sweet breeze of friendships, economic inflow for some, and also dusty wind which carries viruses.  Even those, who do not access internet from their own computers, may bring to their own “safe computers” or to other’s computers all these unwanted pollutions by secondary methods like CDs, Pen drives, Floppies etc. I bet that every common man, woman or a school going child who uses computer, is afraid of pollution of computer.  There are hundreds of modes to pollute a computer ……nonetheless, hundreds of reasons too for doing this mischievous act. The Indian Information Technology Act recognizes two  most prominent modes of polluting the computer under section 43© , i.e introducing or causing to introduce computer contaminant and computer virus. Note that the mode is a two folded mode, i.e either directly introducing or causing to introduce.  This direct or indirect operation includes introduction of any computer contaminant and/or computer virus to the computer as a machine, computer system and the computer network as a whole.

Look at the draftsmen’s  particular observance on the distinguishing feature of ‘computer contaminant’ and ‘computer virus’….explanation to section 43 says under clause (i) that “computer contaminant” is a term which has been used to indicate “any set of instruction” which is designed to

(a) modify,

(b) destroy,

(c) record,

(d) transmit  any data or programme residing within a computer . The term also includes any set of instructions which is designed by any means, to  usurp the normal computer operations. This means that this provision penalizes any or the whole activity done in this course.

             Now, coming to the term “computer virus”, the first thing which came in my mind was the usage of the term “virus” in the very thought provoking movie “3 idiots”. The protagonist and others in the movie named the strict disciplinarian head of the institution “Virus”. It was a short form of his name “Veeru Shasrabudhhi”. But I felt that probably the movie wanted to establish the fact that “Virus” was polluting the minds of young aspirant researchers……………..exactly the way computer viruses pollute the data within the computers which may have been produced after real hard work. The legislation aforementioned in its explanation under clause (iii) clarifies what is meant by the term “computer virus”. It is explained as computer instruction, data or information or programmes that can either destroy, damage, degrade, adversely affect the computer functioning; or can attach itself to another computer resource and operate simultaneously when any data , instruction or programme is executed in that computer resource. The language of the legislation therefore indicates that ‘computer virus’ can include ‘computer contaminant’ too. Nonetheless, computer virus and computer contaminant could be the two prominent modes for hacking, besides monitoring and modifying the contents. Section 43 regulates such pollution of the computer (inclusive of computer contamination and polluting the computer through virus attack) by awarding pecuniary sanction of Rupees 1 Crore which the guilty person has to pay as compensation to the person affected as such.

Taking this provision as the base, hacking and modification of the content by such “pollutions” have also been regulated by Information Technology Act, 2008 under Section 65 (especially when the offense includes destruction, alteration of the computer source code which is required to be maintained by law for the time being in force) and section 66 (which includes all the offences as has been mentioned under Section 43, including ‘polluting’ the computer). Section 65 awards sentence which could be either imprisonment term up to 3 years or  pecuniary sanction which may extend to two lakh Rupees , or both; whereas section 66 awards sentence which could be imprisonment which may extend to three years , or pecuniary fine of  five lakh Rupees, or  both.

Hence do not take computer contamination or virus attacks lightly. If you are a programmer and you are asked to create any such programme, think again how it may affect you if you were the victim. If you are the victim, do not encourage any “techy” to beat the wrongdoer. The law is there to help…..however, how far it can be used and executed, remains still a matter of debates.