Something to Think About When You’re Watching the Olympics
Your privacy can be affected in ways you might never think about. Think about this for a minute: you know the surveillance cameras that are everywhere now? In most of the stores you shop in, on the bus, at all bank machines? You might not remember a time when they weren’t there, but ten or fifteen years ago they were not commonplace.
Events like the Olympics can give governments the opportunity to introduce or increase things like public video surveillance without people realizing it’s happening. It goes like this: they argue that the increased surveillance is necessary to guarantee the public’s safety (with the hundreds of thousands of people that will descend upon the Olympic city it’s hard for citizens to argue against a technology that will keep their communities and cities free of vandalism, poor driving or violent crime). But once a new surveillance technique or technology is put into operation it is very difficult to reverse the decision – so suddenly, there are more cameras, better surveillance, less privacy for you and me.
This was the case at the Athens Olympics. They put an extensive network of closed circuit television cameras (CCTV) into place in preparation for the 2004 Olympic Games. Then, once the Games were finished, the local police forces wanted to use the CCTV network to monitor the activities of their citizens, including the surveillance of civil demonstrations in the city. Eventually, the head of the Greek Data Protection Authority resigned in November 2007 after losing his battle over the appropriate use of the legacy CCTV network.
In Canada, privacy advocates are preparing for a debate of the extent of the public surveillance that will be necessary to protect the public during the 2010 Winter Olympics in British Columbia. The Information and Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia has spoken about limiting the use of CCTV in public surveillance in the past and, in March 2006, our Office released Guidelines for the Use of Video Surveillance of Public Places by Police and Law Enforcement.
And this is where our Office comes in. We’ve decided to commission research into how developments in public surveillance techniques and technology are affecting Canadians, individually and as a society. First off, Queen’s University will be examining the proliferation of surveillance cameras across the country, and report on the trends in the use of public surveillance – although it seems as if we are seeing more and more attempts to expand surveillance networks. As well, the University of Alberta will be taking a detailed look at whether privacy issues are being properly considered in the run-up to the 2010 Olympics.
As with all our commissioned research, this work will be made publicly available early next year – and we hope it helps to maintain an important and public dialogue about how security and surveillance measures proposed for the 2010 games will actually affect the lives of people in British Columbia – and across Canada.
Something else to think about while you’re watching the summer Olympics and cheering our Canadian athletes on!