On May 16, Stone Harbor Police Chief Thomas Schutta briefed the Borough Council on the installation and locations for 17 new surveillance cameras mostly along streets, parks, playgrounds, the local school, and entry and exit points in and out of the borough.
Schutta said the cameras would be used for police investigative purposes. He added that the cameras would also support the fire department, Office of Emergency Management, and Department of Public Works by providing real-time information on flooding in the borough.
Last year, Sea Isle officials authorized spending $200,000 on public surveillance cameras on its Promenade and business district. Avalon recently increased its use of cameras to support law enforcement.
For the most part, these moves were greeted with public support. In recent years, video surveillance cameras or closed-circuit television (CCTV) have gained popularity as crime fighting tools.
In 2021, New Orleans approved a $70 million investment in the technology. In San Francisco, recent proposed changes to the administrative code authorized police to gain access to privately owned surveillance cameras and networks to conduct investigations and to monitor live public events.
Visitors come to Cape May County to relax and enjoy our many amenities, not to be tracked by cameras in public spaces.
In every one of these incidents, it is likely that the officials requesting the additional video surveillance have the best of intensions and sincerely seek to enhance public safety. Yet the rapid growth in the use of this technology should give us pause.
Cameras intruding on public life should present us with some chilling thoughts. The increase in their use deserves more public scrutiny than it is getting. The use of analytic cameras, the rise in links with artificial intelligence, and the advances in technologies like facial recognition are all “entering the picture” simultaneously with the proliferation of video surveillance equipment.
Those who support the increased use of video surveillance equipment see the trend as a boon to public safety. Yet the few studies that have been done do not necessarily support the argument that the cameras act as a deterrent to crime. One study by New York University showed almost no general correlation between the expansion of video surveillance networks and crime deterrence.
We can all cite instances where camera surveillance was effectively used by law enforcement in a specific investigation. But those anecdotal examples do not necessarily add up to justification for significant expansion of such networks.
Those who oppose the more widespread use of this technology often use the example of China where the surveillance systems have been widely deployed as instruments of public control. We like to think that China is a different environment from us, with many more cameras and much more abuse of the technology.
Actually, the most recent data reported by the Wall Street Journal suggests that the U.S. and China have approximately the same number of surveillance cameras in proportion to their respective populations. The difference is in how the cameras are used.
In the U.S., the largest proportion of surveillance cameras are linked to retail and commercial purposes, not widespread coverage of public spaces. But before we take too much comfort from that fact, we need to understand that the area of explosive growth in America is, in fact, the increased implementation of video surveillance in public spaces.
What happens when the surveillance focus shifts from fighting retail theft to monitoring the very public the cameras were installed to protect? It is time to consider the relationship between benefits and risks.
When local boards, large cities, states, and other governmental entities allocate added funding to expanding surveillance camera use, they almost never spend any time on setting limits or controls on that use. Blanket trust appears to govern with the automatic assumption that abuse will not occur.
Our local governments should end the practice of adding more surveillance cameras without the most rigorous justification of instances where they are needed. General and unsubstantiated appeals to the betterment of public safety are not sufficient. Visitors come to Cape May County to relax and enjoy our many amenities, not to be tracked by cameras in public spaces.
