The city is eyeing the widespread addition of security cameras in public parks to prevent graffiti, illegal dumping and metal theft.

But not everyone is keen on more public surveillance in a city that is already outfitting traffic intersections, buses and even garbage trucks with video cameras.

City council signed off Wednesday on a revamped graffiti-battling plan that includes $140,000 for co-op students to track and deal with tagging hot spots on public property.

The plan also calls for a report on expanding video surveillance in city parks after the apparent success of experimental cameras in two Mountain parks, Fay and Lisgar. Those cameras cost $15,000 each — and councillors variously pitched using ward infrastructure cash or even $2.4 million in parking lot sale proceeds as a source of funds.

Coun. Matthew Green, however, said he won't support the expansion without a "very comprehensive" report on privacy implications and protections for residents caught in the camera crosshairs.

"It's a very big question," he said, adding he would also want to see comparative city data proving surveillance cuts crime. "I haven't had my residents say overwhelmingly that they want to be surveilled."

In Fay Park, at least, it appears the cameras are "causing graffiti criminals to abandon that area," said east Mountain Coun. Tom Jackson, who has dealt with years of complaints about illegal paint jobs on homeowner fences backing onto the city park.

He also said the pilot project overcome initial privacy concerns from residents by tweaking the field of view of the cameras.

Ward 4 Coun. Sam Merulla suggested cameras would also help stop trash dumping and metal theft — such as the recent plundering of a pedestrian bridge over the QEW for electrical wires and aluminum handrails.

He said he's confident the city can overcome privacy challenges with "clear, reasonable" rules governing storage and access to video footage.

"We all have our hot spots," Merulla said Thursday. "We can't put (cameras) everywhere, and we shouldn't, but some areas become a perfect storm for criminal activity."

Public surveillance cameras can be "effective tools" so long as governments take care to rigorously control the images and data collected, said former provincial privacy commissioner Ann Cavoukian, now an expert in residence at Ryerson University.

For example, Cavoukian encourages governments to encrypt collected surveillance data and generally only release it to police under warrant.

"We have to protect our privacy; it is increasingly under siege," she said, pointing to the dangers of "incidental activities" in parks being captured on video and wrongly shared.

The city posts an online rationale for its use of cameras in parks, which also happens sporadically for illegal dumping bylaw stings. The web page explains the footage may be used by law enforcement purposes "upon request" or under warrant.

But at the moment, the city does not actually know how many cameras it has in publicly accessible municipal buildings, said facilities head Rom D'Angelo.

He said the city is in the process of hiring a corporate security specialist for next year who will inventory municipal security equipment like cameras and standardize disparate policies and procedures across the corporation.

The city has nonetheless invested heavily in camera technology in the past few years, including $1.7 million to add cameras to its fleet of 260-plus HSR buses.

Those cameras face both in and out, with the goal to protect bus drivers and riders from assaults — or help police track offenders — as well as preserve evidence in collisions.

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More than 1,100 cameras are slowly being added to all of Hamilton's 550 intersections over the next decade. About 160 intersections have them now and a full rollout will likely cost millions of dollars.

Those cameras only allow city workers to monitor, rather than record, a live feed of traffic flow. The eventual goal is to quickly allow remote changes to signal timings to ease major traffic backups seen on video.