UK schools, CCTV and the Data Protection Act 1998

Abstract

The use of CCTV in schools is now commonplace in the UK. It is estimated that 85% of all UK secondary schools currently have CCTV systems in operation. The introduction of the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) (enacted in March 2000) meant that for the first time CCTV had direct legislation governing its use in the UK. This paper attempts to apply the decree to the widespread introduction of CCTV technology in schools and argues that the various elements of statute are impractical or inappropriate to educational institutions. The ill‐defined and vague legislation presented in the DPA 1998 provides very little protection to the data subjects in schools (mainly pupils and teachers). In addition, the ubiquity of CCTV in schools in the UK far surpasses the enforcement capabilities and resources of the Information Commissioner’s Office and as such any contravention of the scant provisions of the Act is likely to go unidentified and under‐enforced. In consideration of the DPA, the paper elucidates numerous examples to suggest that a large number of schools are in contravention of the law. The paper outlines the need for bespoke policy to govern and regulate the use of CCTV in schools. Whilst the paper focuses on the case of the UK, it speaks to an international audience in concluding that the use of CCTV and surveillance technologies in schools requires greater scrutiny and regulation.

Keywords:

• critical analysis
• CCTV
• Data Protection Act 1998
• schools
• education
• surveillance

Notes

1. Norris has suggested that China may have superseded the UK’s proliferation of cameras (cited in Arnot 2006), but it is widely accepted that the British citizens are one of, if not the most surveilled population in the world (Norris and Armstrong 1999, 39; Parker 2001, 65), with more CCTV cameras per person in the UK than any other country.

2. The ICO in the UK is a public body which reports directly to Parliament and is sponsored by the Ministry of Justice. The ICO was ‘set up to promote access to official information and protect personal information by promoting good practice, ruling on eligible complaints, providing information to individuals and organisations, and taking appropriate action when the law is broken’ (ICO, ‘About Us’, http://www.ico.gov.uk/about_us.aspx [accessed July 14, 2009]).

3. As a further indication of how the use of CCTV in schools is becoming more common, it has been reported that some local education authorities are seeking to implement CCTV in all schools within their jurisdiction. For example, 27 schools in Newport have had sophisticated systems installed as part of the ‘CCTV in Schools Initiative’ which gained £0.5 million funding from the Home Office (CCTVision 2003).

4. The 1984 DPA was introduced to protect against the misuse of data in the context of automated processing. In essence, the filming and recording of individuals by CCTV was exempt from the 1984 DPA. For further discussion of its limitations, see Maguire (1998) and McCahill and Norris (2002).

5. The position in Scotland is different, as the local authority responsible for the school is the data controller for any personal data processed by that school, including any use of CCTV systems, and as such the local authority will need to ensure their own register entry covers the school’s various processing activities (Compliance Manager, ICO 2009a).

6. Alternatively, if the data controller does not think the standard templates adequately cover all the purposes for which they process personal data they can create their own ‘bespoke’ register entry using the various standard purposes that already exist, or even creating new purposes if none of the standard purposes are appropriate (Compliance Manager, ICO 2009a).

7. For example, see ‘School CCTV to combat bullying’ (BBC News 2003).

8. For example, see ‘CCTV could be used in exam rooms’ (BBC News 2008).

9. For example, see ‘Class CCTV comes under fire’ (Qureshi 2009).

10. The limited circumstances detailed by the ICO are: audio‐based alert systems, ‘help points’ covered by CCTV but only if the device has been activated by the person requiring assistance, conversations where a reliable record is needed of what has been said, e.g. in a police custody suite, and where recording is triggered due to a specific threat, e.g. a panic button in a taxi cab (ICO 2008, 10). It is questionable as to whether the recording of conversations for teacher training purposes is justifiable by the standards outlined by the ICO.

11. Some pupils have themselves ‘walked out’ of their school following the installation of cameras in the toilets (e.g. see Colasanti 2009), whereas in other cases parents have removed their child from their school following the implementation of CCTV in toilets (e.g. see BBC News 2009b).

12. The installation of CCTV in schools, including pupils’ toilets, has been supported by some headteachers as ‘a positive means to control unsocial behaviour’ (BBC News 2003), whereas others regard it as necessary in contemporary society because the nature of schooling has changed, as an NASUWT secretary stated: ‘the days of the 1950s and Goodbye Mr Chips have unfortunately gone’ (BBC News 2003).

13. ARCH is an organisation that attempts to uphold children’s civil rights, in particular in relation to privacy and freedom of movement. They are mainly internet based and can be found at: www.arch-ed.org

14. CameraWatch is a CCTV advisory body in the UK dedicated to improving compliance with the DPA 1998 compliance.

15. Pupils at a school in Waltham Forest Guardian walked out of their school following the introduction of CCTV because they felt it threatened their civil liberties. The pupils refused to return until they had received assurances that it had been turned off. Furthermore, upon their return to the school, the pupils wore masks to continue their protest (Colasanti 2009). In other cases, individuals have refused to return to the school until CCTV cameras have been removed from pupils’ toilets (BBC News 2009b).

16. A growing litigation culture against schools has been identified in the UK and has been reported in the mass media. For example, David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said many of his members had become concerned about the growth of litigation for incidents such as accidents in the classroom, exclusions and exam results (BBC News 2002).