Final conference in Rotterdam declares "A Charter for the Democratic Use of Video Surveillance” in European Cities

Providing citizens with guaranties regarding the use of CCTV in European cities, that is the purpose of the “Charter for the Democratic Use of Video Surveillance” declared Friday 28th 2010 in Rotterdam at the final conference of the project “Citizens, cities and video-surveillance”.

The Mayor of Rotterdam Ahmed Aboutaleb followed by the president of the French Forum for Urban Security and Senator-Mayor of Saint-Herblain, Charles Gautier, were the first to sign and to commit their cities to the seven principals of the charter. Mr Aboutaleb underlined that “the more cameras there are, the more necessary it becomes to make sure how that camera surveillance is used in an ethical and democratic way”. Mr Gautier stressed the importance of the charter to give ethical guidance for a democratic use of CCTV respecting individual rights and privacy. Both underlined the importance of an initiative that is at the same time European – as it is a European wide phenomenon-and local -where video surveillance takes place and called European cities to follow their example and sign the charter.

The project "Citizens, Cities and Video-Surveillance", supported by the Fundamental Rights and Citizenship Programme of the European Commission, was about reflecting on and exchanging practices of the use of video-surveillance in the respect of fundamental rights and privacy. Based on the experiences and knowledge accumulated in the project, the 11 partners have developed a charter for the democratic use of CCTV in European cities.

Security versus Privacy? How can cities strike a balance between the two, knowing that they are equally important for their inhabitants? The Rotterdam conference was the occasion to share views on these ideas with local, regional, national and European policy makers and experts and to launch the initiative of the charter for the democratic use of CCTV.

Participants discussed with scholars from the UK, the Netherlands and Germany as well as representatives of the European Data Protection Officer and the Belgium government the challenge of balancing the use of CCTV and individual liberties, especially the opportunities for security and the potential dangers for liberty inherent to technological developments. Three round table sessions allowed to discuss how transparency and citizens participation could be ensured, when CCTV was a necessary and proportionate response to urban security concerns and how CCTV systems could be well managed, especially with respect to guaranteeing oversight, accountability and data protection and to present concrete practices of how to implement. After signing the charter, the question was how to implement its principals in concrete local context. The ideas and practices collected in the project, which will be summarised in the publication of the project to be released in the next weeks, will provide first answers to these questions.

The European Forum and its partners see the conference not only as an endpoint of 18 months of work, but also as a starting point to spread the idea of the charter and to work together on implementing its principals in European cities.

Charter for the democractic use of video surveillance

Conference report (coming soon)

Programme

Practical details