Schneier on Security

As I have said all along (check back blog posts adnausium 8)

CCTV works on high value targets where a response in a relativly short period is very much gaurenteed.

CCTV on street corner will be quickly out evolved by criminals.

The same for even covert cammeras unless they are moved frequently.

Unless the operators form an adaptive policy with prompt response CCTV will always end up a failier.

The only way it continues to work is against the "terminaly stupid" and those who for some reason (drunkness) do not take even modest precautions.

So why do we have something like one public cammera for every 14 people in a nation of 60million...

You go figure unless you make the assumption it is a very very expensive publicity campaign by polititions trying to improve their "public safety" credability ratings...

They are going to have to come up with some manhattan-project sized leaps in productivity from these things before they show a return on investment (ie before crime goes down by more than it would have had they spent the same money on plain old street cops).

But I love the idea of them putting the pictures on the internet for people to identify. Now I will be trolling them to see if I can find someone they are looking for who I looks like my ex-wife.

I was recently in London and I was amazed at the number of CCTVs cameras -- not only in metro and train stations and other public premises, but also in many restaurants and shops. On the other hand, I was delighted by the fact that streets were reasonably clean and completely graffiti-free. Probably I am wrong, but as a first thought I correlated the two facts.

there should be cctv in every television set, reporting back to the ministry. reduce crime, thoughtcrime especially

I'm sure that the government will come to the obvious conclusion that we need more cameras. In High-Definition, of course.

Do the cameras at least aid in securing convictions, once someone is arrested for a crime?

Here are a few telling quotes from near the end of one article.

'He said that there were discussions with biometric companies "on a regular basis... Sometimes when they put their [equipment] in operational practice, it's not as wonderful as they said it would be..." '
(I am shocked! Shocked!)

'Asked about the development of a CCTV database, the office of the UK's information commissioner, Richard Thomas, said: "CCTV can play an important role in helping to prevent and detect crime. However we would expect adequate safeguards to be put in place to ensure the images are only used for crime detection purposes, stored securely and that access to images is restricted to authorised individuals. We would have concerns if CCTV images of individuals going about their daily lives were retained as part of the initiative." '
(If this is really the opinion of the commissioner, it's astoundingly naive. Such safeguards will not exist unless they're put in at the beginning and defended savagely, regardless of politics.)

'The charity Victim's Voice, which supports relatives of those who have been murdered, said it supported more effective use of CCTV systems. "Our view is that anything that helps get criminals off the street and prevents crime is good," '
(There you have it. A police state would be good, if it reduced crime.)

That's as may be, but this is the wrong reason to oppose CCTV, and will certainly backfire as the datamining software gets better. Ubiquitous CCTV will almost certainly start solving crimes within the next decade. Will it then be a good idea?

No. It won't be a good idea. Living in a high-surveillance society is too high a cost for the benefit of reducing casual crime rates. That's the drum we should be beating.

But thank God we had CCTV to catch this guy holding his own daughter's hand on the bus!

Let's try that again with the URL, shall we?

http://wbz.com/pages/2137781.php?contentType=4&contentId=2007117

Damn, that really is sick! Little girl with daddy or uncle in big bus with lots of big strange scary people. I'd even expect the man to hold her hand when they're walking through a busy street.

But really, who could be surprised... Cameras are only slightly useful if there is somebody active watching the feed, which is impossible with that many cameras. Even then, a camera overseeing an area that is suppost to be empty could be usefull, because it is easy to spot someone in the image, but cameras watching busy streets, with many people moving and going about there business?

I certainly oppose a police state, and am glad I don't live in the UK, but a question did just occur to me: if these cameras are so bad at detecting crime and collecting evidence, they are equally ineffective at invading privacy.

@Sparky: No, for invading privacy they are well suited.

Because that bored guy in front of the screen can easily hunt for big b**bies, in fact he might miss a drugdealer or two because this takes all of his concentration.

Joke aside, the oppressing effect on normal people is still there.

And thank goodness CCTV helped us get to the bottom of what happened to Charles de Menezes.
Oh wait:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Charles_de_Menezes#Missing_CCTV_footage

It's not so much the cameras that don't work, as the laws and political will to stop the problem. The cameras are just a money sink. Even with photo evidence, street thieves are rarely convicted. As one who researches worldwide street theft, I have had many a frustrating conversation with police and prosecutors. One went like this (after I had just filmed a pickpocket steal from a woman):
- - -
“Why do you protect them?” I asked the cop. “They’ve been here for years!”

“It’s not possible to arrest them,” the officer said. “They only took 200 euros. It’s not enough. They must take 300.”

“But they’ve been doing this for years! It’s ruining your city's reputation.”

“Yes. I know all of them. Their names, their addresses.”

The conversation circled unsatisfactorily, revealing firewalls between politicians, law enforcement, journalists, tourist bureau, and the unfortunate tourists. We, like the police, threw up our hands.
- - -
In the beginning of my research, I proudly brought video to tourist police stations, thinking it would be appreciated. But that was rarely the case. The cops pretty much know who's doing what, and as the police officer above said, they go on doing it for years, as if they own the place. Laws require police to see the crime happen. Laws require police to release those under-age, and mothers with children. The thieves know all the rules and play the game. They're organized, too. They have bail bondsmen and lawyers on retainer.

I wrote here http://bobarno.com/thiefhunters/2008/03/barcelona-street-crime/ in relation to Barcelona, but these facts are largely universal. "Tax and immigration issues, packed prisons, overextended judicial systems, law enforcement budget constraints, high unemployment, all contribute to the persistence of street crime. But when the courts give a pickpocket a monetary fine to pay, how do they expect him to obtain the funds?"

Considering that pickpockets have been stealing since loincloths got pockets, I don't think the problem will go away, with cameras or without. The solution is in training the population to look after themselves. This is what I try to do at Thiefhunters in Paradise.

Oh, one more thing.
@Sparky: "Cameras are only slightly useful if there is somebody active watching the feed, which is impossible with that many cameras."

Not quite. We have thousands of cameras in Las Vegas (where I live), and they're useful after the fact. Victim says when he last had his property and where he was. The footage is backed up and he is located, then tracked, from camera to camera, until the encounter with the thief is found. In Las Vegas, much of the public space covered by cameras. (Unfortunately, thieves know the safe spots.)

And: I saw the video surveillance room in the Johannesburg CBD, where operators watched banks of state-of-the-art screens, controlling pan and zoom cameras. It can work.

> And thank goodness CCTV helped us get > to the bottom of what happened to Charles de Menezes.
> Oh wait:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Charles_de_Menezes#Missing_CCTV_footage

Yes, there were no CCTV footage in this case... I wonder why ?!?

Who thinks that this...

http://wbz.com/pages/2137781.php?contentType=4&contentId=2007117

was caused by something like this...

http://hamptonroads.com/node/285581

While I opposed CCTV for a bunch of happy logical rational reasons, the "3% of crimes solved" statistic in no way invalidates the pro-CCTV crowd's point of view.

The missing piece of information is crime rates, and whether these drop in CCTV surveilled areas as opposed to unwatched areas. If, as I suspect is the case, there is little difference in rate, then the 3% statistic is a little more interesting.

Does anyone know of a good study on crime rates and CCTV? I'd be very interested to read up!

Wow. Did Bruce even read past the headlines? The first article itself says the cameras are working.

"According to the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), CCTV has not failed. They say it has helped reduce crime in the capital."

How shocking that when the police say, "Yeah, well, we don't want to look at the footage. And when we don't look at the footage, we find that we don't see any crimes on the footage."

"more intelligent use of the technology are important"

Amen. If you don't use something properly, of course it doesn't work.

Is there such a dearth of "studies" that claim that surveillance camers don't work that the anti-camera crowd is reduced to quoting articles which claim that the cameras do actually work? Amazing.

@TheDoctor
[quote]
Because that bored guy in front of the screen can easily hunt for big b**bies, in fact he might miss a drugdealer or two because this takes all of his concentration.
[/quote]

I had a massive Freudian slip when I read your comment as "takes all of his contraception" instead of "takes all of his concentration."

I had to do a double-take on that one.

All of those cameras are there so that Torchwood can watch for a specific blue police box...

It is interesting to know whether blanketing the world with CCTV reduces crime, but maybe that's not really the right question. So far the statistics say this approach isn't working, but supposing that it did - are we willing to subject ourselves and our loved ones to continuous monitoring and recording by and for whatever government we end up with, forever, in order to make it easier for said government to punish whoever it catches doing something it forbids? Will this improve our lives? Will it make our world a better place to live?

I'm in the states and often wondered about public access to the cameras here. After all, if we're paying for them, shouldn't I be able to open up a web browser and take a peek through them?

Of course I'm talking about cameras that are in public places, like the ones perched atop the traffic lights and the ones on the side to catch red light runners, which we all know work sooooo well.

Oh, sure, blame the technology.

This reminds me of GM in the 1980s who found that massive investment in automation technology failed. It was a fiasco as GM plants with the robots needed thousands more staff than their competitors. More importantly, however, was that this was the opposite of Toyota's results with technology during the same period.

Robots now are a success story for GM (after partnering with and modeling itself after Toyota).

The lesson was not to expect quality to originate from a robot. Similarly, reduction of crime will not originate from cameras, but when technology is managed properly....

Bruce, were you aware that at least two Chief Constables in the UK (equiv of top cop for a US state) have expressed concerns about the proliferation of CCTV cameras in the UK?

"A senior police officer has said he fears the spread of CCTV cameras is leading to 'an Orwellian situation'. Deputy chief constable of Hampshire Ian Readhead said Britain could become a surveillance society with cameras on every street corner."
Police chief's 'Orwellian' fears
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6673579.stm
and
CCTV creating 'Orwellian' society
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1552190/CCTV-creating-'Orwellian'-society.html

The issue today is that the cameras just record. The police have to manually review the footage to find what they're looking for, then prove the image is what they say it is in court. Once computers can automagically determine a crime was committed, dispatch a drone, and have the drone shoot the perpetrator, only then will crime be reduced. We'll just bypass Judge Dredd and go straight to Skynet.

@ derf
'The issue today is that the cameras just record.'

Would you have them attach machine guns to automatically 'engage wrong doers'?

Fight CCTV, become a hoodie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoodie

Security cameras are similar to gun control: both have negligible success targeting criminals. But, just try to get useless laws repealed or stop the spending on ineffective camera systems, and the bureaucracy reacts with more. It takes a truly intelligent government to admit a mistake and try something that works.

@ Mike,

It is not just,

"The missing piece of information is crime rates..."

The real question is "proportinality".

For instance if I put a machine gun nest in you town square and man it 24x7 with persons who will shot anything and everything that moves then you would expect "street crime" in the fire zone to be close to zero from that point onwards.

But what of the cost of doing it not just the direct cost for the nest and it's man power. What about the indirect cost of loss of utility of your town square and the increase in trafic and inconveniance in adjacent areas?

Are the two costs proportianate with the reduction in street crime in the fire zone?

Further do people seriously believe that the criminals will become law abiding citizens or that they will just migrate their illegal activities to some place where there is not a machine gun nest?

The few "long term independent follow up" studies carried out on public place CCTV instalations that I have seen have all show that,

1) Initialy "planed" crime (pick pocket / mugging) drops in the area, unplaned (drunken behaviour etc) tends to remain the same.

2) That pland crime rises in adjacent areas in proportion to the drop.

3) After a relatively short period the pland crime rate starts to rise again in the CCTV covered area, unless rapid response techneiques are deployed.

4) unless the CCTV covered area is of very high value the operation costs soon out weigh the benifits.

5) comparison with other measures such as closing "bolt holes". better street lighting and regular police foot patrols show that CCTV is less effective in both costs and longterm results.

Which brings me onto the real problem with the CCTV studies,

@ Heads in The Sand,

"Is there such a dearth in studies"

Short term no longterm yes, and the short term studies tend to be sponsored by those with vested interests the longterm not.

This is a very real problem, as well as,

Short term studies tend to only study the effects in the covered area almost immediatly after the systems are installed and operational and there is a willingness by the local police force to rapid respond the area. They also tend to highlight the "successes" (planed crime) not the others.

The very few independent long term studies tend to cover not just the CCTV covered area but quite a widespread uncovered area around it. Further these studies carry on long after the initial "good will" by authorities have worn off and the preasures of rising crime in adjacent areas refocus the police efforts away from the CCTV covered area.

What we need is more independent longterm wide area studies, unfortunatly these tend to be expensive to conduct and there are very very few sources of funding available for them.

As has been observed,

"Lying with statistics is only moderatly more difficult than lying without them",

"There are lies, dam lies and statistics",

"The truth is rarely palitable"

And

"Quick fixes invariably fail with time".