COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, April 14, 2014

MOTION NO.14

MOTION: Councillor J. Lahart

That the Manager provide this committee with definitive legal advice concerning the provision of CCTV monitoring within residential estates in this county - is it allowed or not and is it legal or not and if it is how best can this local authority assist those associations attempting to deliver it (private estates)

REPORT:

There is no specific piece of legislation covering the legal use of CCTV in Ireland. The primary legislation covering the use of CCTV is provided by the Data Protection Acts, 1988 & 2003 and the Garda Síochána Act, 2005. Other pieces of regulatory control are facilitated through the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the Constitution of Ireland. In addition, and specifically for community-based CCTV systems, there are also a number of guidance documents.

The use of CCTV systems has greatly expanded in recent years. So has the sophistication of such systems.  Systems now on the market have the capacity to recognise faces.  They may also be capable of recording both images and sounds.   The expanded use of CCTV systems has society-wide implications.  Unless such systems are used with proper care and consideration, they can give rise to concern that the individual's "private space" is being unreasonably eroded.

Recognisable images captured by CCTV systems are personal data and are therefore subject to the provisions of the Data Protection Acts 1988 and 2003.

Further information is available on the following websites:

http://www.dataprotection.ie/viewdoc.asp?DocID=796

 http://www.dataprotection.ie/docs/Data-Protection--CCTV/242.htm

 http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Pages/WP12000262

 The Community Based CCTV Scheme (which was led by the Department of Justice and Law Reform) commenced in 2005 and aimed to support local communities who wished to install and maintain community CCTV security systems in their area, with the goal of increasing public safety and reducing the risk of anti-social and criminal activity.

 The scheme was intended to support community-based organisations that wished to provide community CCTV systems, in order to deter illegal or anti-social behaviour in places to which the general public have routine access, such as residential communities, city and town centres. The scheme was designed to provide financial assistance, to qualifying local organisations, towards meeting the capital costs associated with the establishment of local community CCTV systems. It should be noted that Local Authorities were not recognised as qualifying local organisations.  The Community CCTV Scheme is no longer open to any new funding applications.