CCTV – ubisurv

Watching Downtown Tokyo

So, I’m back in Tokyo until next April, revisiting the areas which I examined in 2005-6, where surveillance cameras have been installed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, and the wards where I did case-study research on community safety development in 2009 (see my posts in this blog from July to September 2009).

One initial impression is that the progress of video surveillance has not perhaps been as rapid as I would have thought, but it may be that this impression is mistaken. Certainly, the numbers of cameras deployed by the TMP have not increased rapidly. While I looked initially at Shinjuku’s Kabukicho district, where cameras were first introduced in 2002 and Shibuya and Ikebukuro (2004), they were also introduced in Ueno (2006) and Roppongi (2007). The numbers of cameras in these areas and the technologies in use have not changed greatly since their introduction: Kabukicho has 55; Shibuya, 20; Ikebukuro, 49; Ueno, 12; and Roppongi, 44. The cameras are all in areas associated with the night economy – pink or ‘red line areas’, or what in the UK would be called ‘red light districts’ or places strongly associated with gang-related nightlife activities.

From then there was a gap and nothing happened until this year, when the TMP introduced a small number of cameras into an area they seem to have previously overlooked: the so-called ‘Kabukicho of the East’ – it’s even referred to in this way by tourist guides – Kinshicho in Sumida ward, still very much a rough, working class area. Kinshicho is apparently known for two things: gambling (on horse-racing – it’s not coincidentally the HQ of the Japan Racing Association) and ‘gaijin bars’ (or hostess bars staffed by foreign hostesses). But, if one examines the crime maps produced by the TMP, Kinshicho is not a particularly high crime area especially compared to its western counterpart, Kabukicho, and there are other areas of dubious repute in Tokyo, so what’s behind this particular move at this time?

AJ201205130014M — CCTV cameras at the Tokyo Sky Tree Tower (Hirotaka Kawakami)

This is simply speculation on my part, and I will be talking to police and others about this in the next few months, but Sumida ward is gentrifying. In 2006, the massive new Olinas shopping complex was built in the Kinshicho area, and then in 2012, the Tokyo Sky Tree Tower, the new communications tower for Tokyo, complete with associated shopping and entertainment complex, landed in Oshiage, just to the north. Shitamachi (literally ‘low city’ – or downtown) areas have become fashionable now and not just among tourists. But this nostalgic search for an older, ‘authentic’ Tokyo, usually that of the post-WW2 period, is limited to safe images of craftsmen, small shops, stand-up bars, street food, hard-work and propriety. Frankly, Kinshicho seems to be seen as an embarrassing throwback to a shadow image of the ‘bad old days’ of the shitamachi of gangs, gambling and the sex trade, that the authorities at least do not want associated with the new and more pleasant presentation they are seeking to create.

But the TMP cameras are only a small part of the story of public space video surveillance in Tokyo, and if one sticks to the police numbers, one would get a very misleading impression. For example, the Sky Tree Tower has been the focus of a major introduction of video surveillance through the main mechanism for public space surveillance in Tokyo, the 2003 Anzen Anshin Machizukuri Jourei (Community Safety Ordinance). This empowers neighbourhood and shopkeepers’ associations to introduce camera systems with support from ward governments and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. In Oshiage, a very large and locally controversial 77 camera-system was introduced from 2012, with most of the cameras (66) directly around the Sky Tree. Kinshicho also has its TMP cameras supplemented by an even larger number of non-TMP cameras – the Asahi article above claims 47 but it’s unclear whether that includes the TMP cameras or not.

The progress of community safety development is the main focus of my research here this time, so I’ll be visiting Oshiage and Kinshicho in the near future. And I’ll be writing much more about this method of crime control through development planning, as it will no doubt be a key feature of how preparations for the 2020 Olympics are made.

Sky Net: Hunan’s video surveillance state

Never mind the smog that obscures the view from the cameras, China is pressing ahead with the construction of the most comprehensive and integrated surveillance of public space in the world. The latest report comes from Hunan province, where “26,022 cameras and 103 surveillance rooms” have been installed. What is particularly interesting, however is that the police intend to integrate “186,000 private cameras owned by residential communities, shopping malls and private enterprises” into the system. Whether this will be successful or not, given the vast differences in analog and digital systems and other compatibility and standards issues, is another matter, but few states have even tried to combine public and private video surveillance systems in this way.

Interestingly the case offered for the effectiveness of the system is as sparse as that to be found in the west, which is particularly strange given that it comes from the police themselves and they could have made it seem a lot more effective: apparently the cameras have “provided clues for more than 2,100 criminal cases” – or less than 1 for every ten cameras, and even more vaguely “has prevented and discouraged crime in some residential communities”. I’m sure that it’s worth the money to the state in terms of keeping a watch on political dissent and any sign of unofficial public politics however.

The punchline is the name of the system: “Sky Net”. Either the Hunan government are not great fans of the Terminator films, or they have a very highly developed and bleak sense of irony…

Through a glass, darkly…

There are many reasons why video surveillance (or closed-circuit television – CCTV) works less well than its advocates claim, and here is another to add to the list from China, the country with probably the most rapidly expanding surveillance infrastructure in the world, and the reason is: air pollution.

china_smog — Low visibility in Chinese cities due to smog (South China Morning Post)

According to the South China Morning Post, the current record levels of smog in several major cities is leading to visibility of below three metres. It makes video surveillance, even with infrared or other night vision capabilities, useless, and there are no easy solutions.

The Chinese state is so paranoid about internal security, particularly following the recent apparent terrorist attack in Beijing, that it is even considering installing imaging radar systems, more normally found in battlefields and satellite systems. Apparently, dealing with either the root causes of the pollution or the ‘security’ issues (mainly political discontent across China’s massive and diverse land area) is not on the cards, so China continues to stay on the surveillance technology treadmill…

(thanks to Matt Wei for bringing this to my attention)

$100 to anyone who can find a ‘privacy-compliant camera’ in Canada

Actually, the headline (from the Toronto Metro free paper) is a little misleading as what my friend and colleague Andrew Clement is actually betting on here is that no-one can find a video surveillance system in Canada that is fully compliant with Canadian privacy law. Which of course may of may not be the same as ‘privacy’ in any other terms. But it’s an interesting challenge – that is largely to do with signage. Prof Clement and his team at the iSchool at UofT have been monitoring the way in which video surveillance systems in Canada are signed for quite some time. As their website, surveillancerights.ca (which is also where you can try to claim your $100…) says

“Signs should at a minimum clearly tell you:

who is operating the camera
who you can contact if you have questions
the purpose(s) of the surveillance”

The signs should also in themselves be clearly visible, not hidden away somewhere. There’s more detailed information about requirments here.

So, who’s going to take up this bet?

(Thanks to Matthias Vermeulen for the story and Aaron Martin for noticing the difference between privacy and privacy law.)

German activists attack CCTV

Activists in Germany have apparently been attacking video surveillance cameras and performing a number of other interventions to demonstrate the lack of ‘security’ and the unequal outcomes generated by these systems. There’s a great report on this with video and pictures from The Observers on France24.