Scotland’s force says outdated system of 2,800 CCTV cameras should be scrapped, while officers’ body cameras might breach data protection laws

Police Scotland is pressing for a single, centralised CCTV network to cover the country’s streets, shops and public spaces after warning most of the current cameras are ageing, unreliable and potentially unlawful.

The force has told Scottish ministers it wants to scrap what it sees as an outdated, “piecemeal” system of local, decentralised control over 2,800 CCTV cameras. It instead wants a single police-run national network using high-definition digital cameras, installed at a cost of at least £10m.

The proposal is the central recommendation of a confidential Police Scotland review from 2013 that warns many of Scotland’s ageing CCTV systems are close to collapse; a large number are kept running using second-hand parts bought at high cost and are at risk of “instant failure”, it claims.

Decent, law-abiding people deserve assurances that someone is watching the watchmen Willie Rennie, Scottish Lib Dem leader

The document, published on Wednesday by the investigative website the Ferret after it was released under freedom of information legislation, also reveals that 16 unnamed local councils have failed to carry out any data-protection audits of their CCTV networks.

It admits that in several areas in the old Grampian force area, and in Renfrewshire, where body cameras worn by police officers were tested, the force may be breaching data protection laws.

An unredacted version of the report states: “The management of these devices at a number of different offices is questionable in regards to compliance with the Information Commissionaires [sic] Office guidance and legislative requirements.”

The call for a single police-controlled national network and revelations about the condition of the current CCTV network – identified in the report as “public space” cameras covering places such as roads, junctions, shopping areas, parks and squares, alarmed opposition parties and privacy campaigners.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats have tabled parliamentary questions at Holyrood asking ministers to confirm that Scotland’s CCTV network, unlike in England and Wales, is unregulated and unaudited. Ministers have previously said a voluntary code was sufficient.

Willie Rennie, the Scottish Lib Dem leader, who has repeatedly attacked the centralisation of policing in Scotland, said: “The Scottish government should follow the UK government and take steps to regulate CCTV cameras to prevent inappropriate surveillance in our community. Decent, law-abiding people deserve assurances that someone is watching the watchmen.



“The system needs an urgent overhaul, but I am far from convinced that the proposed national network is the answer, as it poses a number of questions about privacy, especially as it might be used in concert with new, unregulated facial-recognition technology.”

Pol Clementsmith, from the privacy campaign Open Rights Group, told the Ferret: “Clear lines must be drawn in the digital sand otherwise we are all headed towards a situation where we’re sleepwalking into a surveillance state.

“This document lays bare an ongoing catalogue of errors, whereby Police Scotland and a number of local authorities are potentially breaching data-protection laws on a daily basis.”

Police Scotland confirmed it was in “ongoing dialogue” with Scottish ministers, councils and CCTV partnerships to pursue its plan for an upgraded national network. The report said CCTV was an essential policing tool, but was also give public reassurance, helping tackle anti-social behaviour.



The review had “identified the age of the current equipment and the advances that have been made in technology mean that an injection of capital funding will be required to update the ageing systems,” a police spokesman said.



But the Scottish government appeared to distance itself from the call for a single national system, insisting that it was encouraging the police to work with councils on co-funding CCTV. “The detail contained in the Public Space CCTV Review is a matter for Police Scotland who carried out the review,” a spokeswoman said.



The Police Scotland review found 80% of the country’s public-space CCTV cameras – a definition that excludes schools, hospitals and housing association land, were old analogue systems.

And 85% of the “matrices” – the recording, control systems and TV monitors that back them up, were analogue, while 80% also used analogue communications systems. While nearly all the cameras were now hybrids, with retrofitted digital encoders, they were vulnerable to complete failure if analogue parts broke down.

Police stress costs thousands of working days in Scotland Read more

“It is clear that an investment into the landscape of public space CCTV is required now at an urgent pace. Systems across the country are already becoming obsolete and redundant,” it reports, adding later: “There is a major piece of work required to turnaround failing systems, and to keep them fit for purpose.”

At 2013 prices, it would cost roughly £3.8m to update all the analogue matrices and another £5.75m to replace the analogue cameras, at some £2,500 each, with ultra-high-definition Japanese cameras. There were would be further, unknown costs of using Wi-Fi or 3G mobile systems to upgrade their communications.

The report said Police Scotland would focus on putting the newest static cameras on areas of high footfall and districts with high numbers of pubs and night clubs – “areas of night-time economy”. But “rapid deployment cameras” using Wi-Fi or 3G mobile networks would increase dramatically in number.