The Security Management of Barcelona City Council maintains its firm commitment to police video surveillance as an “effective” instrument to improve prevention and help with images in judicial investigations. This week, the City Council has received authorization to install eight new devices that will be located in Ciutat Vella, specifically in an area of Raval where crimes grew by 55% last year.
This month the tender for the cameras will begin and, between one thing and another, they will not start recording until next year. Thus, the city will close 2023 with 117 devices. Cameras that are protected and controlled by the Barcelona Urban Police, with the capacity to view images in real time from the joint command room on Lleida Street.
With the new police video surveillance points, Ciutat Vella will be confirmed as the most protected district, with 85 devices. It was precisely in George Orwell Square where the first of the cameras was placed, in the summer of 2001. Since then it has rained a lot and the relationship of Barcelona residents with video surveillance devices has changed. The first of the cameras was sabotaged practically daily, with stones or by covering it with paint because its presence was understood as an invasion of privacy. Now it is the neighborhood and merchant associations that are leading the requests to install cameras in their areas.
The Security Manager of the City Council, Maite Casado, ratified together with her team in the position by the current mayor, Jaume Collboni, yesterday summoned the media to remember the control mechanisms and bureaucracy that the placement of each of these devices entails. . It also the criteria that are used to choose the points where they are installed, and which have mainly to do with citizen safety.
There can only be police cameras on public roads in Catalonia. A public road is understood to be any street, square, beach, bridge or park where a conflict persists over time that advises the municipal authority to request the installation of one or the necessary cameras. These terminals are managed exclusively by police officers and requested from the Catalan video surveillance commission by the town councils.
The new Raval cameras will be installed on poles on Drassanes Avenue and Oleguer and Tàpies streets, among other points. In that area are two of the most important police facilities in the district: the Mossos d'Esquadra police station in Nou de la Rambla and the new Urban Police offices, on Tàpies Street, which have their own peripheral surveillance cameras. of the buildings.
Regarding the possibility that the number of cameras will grow in the city, Maite Casado admitted that the city has other areas in which “it would be worth working” because many aspects would improve with this type of police control. Some points that she preferred not to reveal, but on which the Urban Guard is working: "The camera supports police work."
Casado admitted that there is a general feeling among citizens that there are more and more cameras that control and record our lives. But this is a perception that is only half-held. The presence of police video surveillance, which exclusively includes cameras controlled by the police, is light years away from any corner of our environment.
If we compare Barcelona with Nice, it is better understood. Both cities were terrorist targets in 2016 and 2017. In Barcelona there are 117 video surveillance cameras and in Nice 3,500.
