CCTV, risk management and regulation mechanisms in publicly-used places: A discussion based on swiss examples

Abstract

This paper focuses on the relations between different types of actors involved in both conceiving and using video-surveillance systems. More specifically, it deals with the reasons that support the growing use of video-surveillance systems, and the organisation structures and implementation schemes that are designed to cope with them. The analysis raises issues linked to the complexity of social and spatial relations that CCTV tends to produce. Based on four Swiss case studies chosen in function of different objectives (risks), different types of public spaces that are under surveillance (city centre, motorway, industrial zone, public transport), as well as different stages of completion of a CCTV project, the main results are to document new categories of actors: the definition of the relationship between CCTV-providers and end-users must be enlarged. Many more actors are playing important roles in terms of risk management and decision making while designing and implementing CCTV systems. Risks under surveillance: different types of risks are under surveillance. The study is underlining that different forms of surveillance must be distinguished, given the spatial characteristics of every risk (diffuse, located, specific and/or territorialized). The ‘distancing effect’: CCTV obviously creates distance between the object and the place where surveillance is actually made. To go a bit further, the paper claims that several kinds of distancing effects should be considered. These distancing effects modify both the quality of places under surveillance and the general context where mechanisms can be designed and implemented for a better public regulation of CCTV uses.