Vancouver city council debates adding more surveillance cameras to city streets

Vancouver city council is expected to vote on a motion Wednesday evening about whether to explore putting more surveillance cameras in public places.

Coun. Melissa De Genova brought the motion forward in response to what she claims is a spike in violent crime and random attacks in the city.

In some recent highly-publicized stranger assaults, Vancouver police have been able to use video from security cameras on private property to identify suspects.

“The motion does not say how we should deploy these cameras,” De Genova said in an interview with CTV News. “I’d leave that up to the experts which is the VPD, our city staff, as well as the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. I understand that there are some privacy concerns here.”

When the motion first came forward Tuesday, some councillors expressed concerns about privacy.

“What do you say to the criticism that this is just leading to big brother is watching you, and this is another invasion of privacy?" asked Coun. Colleen Hardwick.

The question of funding also came up with the mayor claiming a public surveillance system would be very costly.

"This could cost tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of dollars,” said Kennedy Stewart.

According to De Genova, the city already has a number of cameras that were used during the 2010 Winter Olympics and she suggests they could be re-used to reduce the cost.

In her motion, De Genova cites the alleged success of CCTV being used in conjunction with even more invasive technology in the United Kingdom.

“Technology has advanced in the United Kingdom, and the Metropolitan Police have moved beyond CCTV cameras by implementing facial recognition technology,” she wrote in the second paragraph of the motion.

The third paragraph references Washington, New York and Orlando as American cities testing facial recognition technology.

Although she wrote the motion, including those references and links to the London Metropolitan Police’s webpage describing its use of facial recognition technology, De Genova insists she is not calling for it to be used in Vancouver.

“My motion says that other places around the world use facial recognition technology. I’m very clear in my motion that that is not what I’m asking for,” she told CTV News. “I’m not asking for these cameras to be watched live by police.”

Facial recognition technology uses artificial intelligence to track people across multiple surveillance cameras and camera systems and does not require a person to monitor the video feeds in order to do so.

Meghan McDermott, a staff lawyer with the BC Civil Liberties Association, said studies have shown facial recognition to be inherently biased against non-Caucasian faces.

"You end up getting a lot of false positives, even up to I think over 30 percent in some cases in the U.S, and this is extremely dangerous to the health and well-being of individuals,” she said.

Tech expert Mike Agerbo, host of Get Connected Radio, says the technology has come a long way over the years -– but concerns about racial bias are legitimate.

"A lot of these companies that sell this software say it's 99 percent accurate, but it just depends,” Agerbo said. “There have been issues with darker skin in the past."

McDermott called De Genova’s motion vague and said that gave her concerns about police using any new surveillance system in ways beyond the scope of what was intended.

“Once the tool is in the hands of government, we’ve seen over and over again that the tool ends up being used for a whole bunch of purposes that weren’t initially contemplated or considered,” McDermott said.

If the motion passes in council, city staff will be directed to work with police to determine where cameras could be most effective – and how much a system like this might cost.